(Deuterium-Deuterium)-Driven Experimental Hybrid Blankets and Their Neutronic Analyses

The impressive progress made so far toward the achievement of the physics goal of ignited fusion fuel of deuterium-tritium (D-T) is stirring the scientific community to look back and work for the earliest possible introduction of advanced fusion fuel based reactors with the ultimate objective of very clean, safe, and limitless fusion power. As the introduction of advanced fuel fusion drivers is expected to be in phases due to energetics considerations, it is quite instructive to examine the neutronic aspects of deuterium-deuterium (D-D) neutron driven hybrid blankets. The neutronics investigations of some compact hybrid blankets that could be tested experimentally are presented. The blanket designs are selected to conform to a rather small experimental chamber of the LOTUS fusionfission hybrid facility. The parallelepiped-shaped blankets are driven by a (D-D) neutron source from one side. The fertile fuel is either ThO/sub 2/, natural UO/sub 2/, or LOTUS UO/sub 2/. The tritium breeders are chosen from lithium, LiAlO/sub 2/, or Li/sub 2/O. The relative performances of different fertile fuels and tritium breeders are compared. The performance characteristics of ThO/sub 2/ blankets driven by (D-T) and (D-D) neutrons are compared. The improvement in performance characteristics obtained by the introduction of actinides as multipliersmore » with ThO/sub 2/ hybrid blankets is also investigated.« less