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• The progresses of the Primary Heat Transfer System of the HCPB Breeding Blanket for the DEMO reactor are outlined. • The main components of Ex-Vessel PHTS has been sized to be compliant with the new In-Vessel requirements. • Results highlights that the 2017 HCPB BB PHTS has reached improved thermal-hydraulic and safety characteristics. • Further efforts are still needed to reduce PHTS pressure drops and volumes as well as to improve IHXs performance. In the frame of the activities promoted and encouraged by the EURO-fusion Power Plant Physics and Technology (PPPT) department aimed at developing the EU-DEMO fusion reactor, strong emphasis has been recently posed to the whole Balance of Plant (BoP) which represents the set of systems devoted to convert the plasma generated thermal power into electricity and to deliver it to the grid. Among these systems, a very important role is played by the Breeding Blanket (BB) Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS) as it is responsible to extract more than 80% of the fusion plasma power. In this framework, University of Palermo, Ansaldo Nucleare and CREATE have focused their work to improve thermal-hydraulic, safety and integration features of the Ex-Vessel PHTS for the Helium-Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) BB concept of DEMO. Starting from the outcomes obtained in 2016 that have allowed to highlight some criticalities which needed design changes, the paper describes progress and developments of the 2017 HCPB PHTS as well as the goals which have been achieved. The results of the research activity carried out show, in fact, i) an increase of the thermal-hydraulic performances, since a reduction in both total coolant inventory and total pressure drop has been respectively reached, ii) a potential improvement of the overall safety characteristics of the system. Nevertheless a critical assessment of these key parameters reveals that some issues are still open in terms of design integration and feasibility of the whole DEMO BoP for the helium-cooled blanket option, indicating that additional efforts are required to make this technology more attractive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two models are currently taken as reference for the breeding blanket (BB) of DEMO, the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) and the Water Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL). For both the models two Balance of Plant (BOP) configurations are currently investigated. They are all based on four independent primary heat transfer systems (PHTSs). The largest PHTS is devoted to remove the BB thermal power, two PHTSs for the divertor (DIV) and one for the vacuum vessel (VV) heat removals. Both DIV loops and VV loop transfer their thermal power directly to the power conversion system (PCS). The two BOP configurations are investigated to cope with the pulsed operation of the reactor. The first configuration consists of an "indirect coupling" of the BB PHTS to the PCS by an Intermediate Heat Transfer System placed in between them. The second configuration consists in a "direct-coupling" of the BB PHTS to the PCS. Reliability, availability, maintainability and inspectability (RAMI) analyses for the four PHTS and PCS configurations are presented in this paper. The Failure Mode, Effect Analysis (FMEA) and the Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) methodologies have been used to perform the studies. As main result can be highlighted that even the low reliability of the systems to operate without failure and the large number of requests of corrective maintenance, all the systems are in compliance with an operational availability target of 30 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]