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• The blanket testing facility for WCCB TBM was newly built in Rokkasho Fusion Institute, Japan. • An apparatus for flow accelerated corrosion testing under coolant condition of TBM was installed. • An apparatus for high heat flux testing under cooling with pressurized water using electron beam gun was installed. • An apparatus for ingress testing of pressurized water inside TBM was installed. • An apparatus for evaluating characteristics of beryllium-water reaction was installed. Intensive research and development activities have been conducted for designing a water-cooled ceramic breeder (WCCB) blanket system. In this system 325 °C/15.5 MPa of pressurized water removes heat injected and accumulated in blanket containers made of a reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steel, F82H. The container has lithium ceramics and beryllium pebbles as tritium breeder and neutron multiplier, respectively. In order to demonstrate performance of the system, especially for high-temperature pressurized water coolant, experimental apparatus have been installed in Rokkasho Fusion Institute, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, Japan. These apparatuses enable to conduct the following experiment on full-scale mockups: 1) high heat flux (HHF) test to demonstrate heat removal of surface heat flux by electron beam gun simulating plasma, 2) flow assisted corrosion, 3) coolant ingress into dummy pebble beds, and 4) beryllium-water reaction between the coolant and the pebbles. In this paper, overviews, specifications, early results of these apparatus are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the submodules as the most important structural component in Water-Cooled Ceramic Breeder (WCCB) Test Blanket Module (TBM) contributes to tritium breeding and extracting, structural integrity assessment is necessary to keep normal operation and function of WCCB TBM-set. Recently, the nonirradiated material properties of F82H which is considered as the structural material of submodule has been summarized following the requirement of RCC-MRx, combined with EU directive, French order, and pressure vessel construction code (RCC-MRx), structural integrity assessment is investigated under the ITER relevant thermo-mechanical load in this study. Meanwhile, cooling water conditions of WCCB TBM-set with its operation scenario, relationship, and detailed values (temperature and pressure) are constituted. Based on the determined structural integrity assessment procedure from RCC-MRx and numerical analysis results, structural integrity of current design of submodule in WCCB TBM-set could be validated. According to the current achievements and established structural integrity assessment procedure, further evaluation on structural integrity combined with electromagnetic load shall be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive research and development activities have been conducted for preliminary design of a water-cooled ceramic breeder (WCCB) blanket system. As a part of these activities, some full scale mockups have been fabricated to verify feasibility, including manufacturing and inspecting procedures. This paper introduces an overview of the recent achievements in the mock-up testing on the WCCB blanket system. A blanket sub-module mockup have been manufactured using a reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steel, F82H with conventional industrial resources. As for water cooling system component, a mock-up of pneumatic isolation valve for DN50 pipe. The valve demonstrated sound operation after vertical and horizontal vibration simulating seismic loads. Moreover, the valve has demonstrated close / open operation in less than three seconds in magnetic field ranging from 290 to 500 mT, and the operation time was not affected by the magnetic field in this range. As for tritium storage device, mockup of ZrCo metal hydrate bed were also manufactured to find show stoppers in application as equipment for tritium extraction system (TES) in the WCCB-blanket system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multivariate probability of detection (POD) analysis method for long-range pipe inspection using microwave non-destructive testing (NDT). The proposed two-dimensional (2D) POD model considers both the size and location of pipe wall thinning (PWT) and is thus able to simultaneously characterize the detectability and detection range. First, the propagation of microwaves in a pipe with PWT was modeled through numerical simulation. The simulated S-parameters (S11) were converted into the time domain and were further processed to correlate the amplitude of the reflection signal with the corresponding PWT depth and location. The simulation results indicate that the logarithmic amplitude of the reflection signal is proportional to the PWT location and logarithmic PWT depth. Therefore, a prior multivariate regression model was established for the above three parameters. Second, an experiment was performed using a 14.5-m-long brass pipe. Twelve short pipes with six different inner diameters were used to emulate PWT and were deployed at eight different locations in the pipe. The experimental results suggest that each PWT can be detected with excellent repeatability, and show consistency with the simulation results. The processed experimental signals were subsequently employed for the regression model of the amplitude of the reflection signal, PWT depth, and location. Finally, a 2D POD model was constructed on the basis of the regression model and a dynamic-static threshold, combining in-pipe microwave signal attenuation with instrumental noises. The POD plot and contour give reasonable interpretations of the detection capability of this testing method against PWTs with different depths, considering the PWT locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) are the implementing body of ITER project in Japan and takes the lead in fusion DEMO reactor development in Japan. The primary candidate of the breeder blanket for JA DEMO is Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder (WCCB) blanket. ITER-Test Blanket Module (TBM) program is an opportunity for the demonstration of DEMO breeding blanket concept under actual fusion environment. QST has led the development of the WCCB TBM Concept in the program since the signing of the TBM Arrangement in 2014. The preliminary design of test blanket system (TBS) is on-going. Recently, the status of the preliminary design of TBS was assessed between QST and the ITER Organization (IO). So, the status of the latest TBS design and the DEMO relevancy is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]