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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]

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]

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]