Measurement of tritium production in the helium cooled pebble bed test blanket module mock-up at JET during DTE2

Abstract Quite often, detectors for measuring nuclear performance and radiation quantities of relevance in fusion experiments are requested to withstand harsh working conditions due to intense neutron and gamma radiation fields. High temperature constitutes a further harsh element in some locations of the machine, where it is necessary to perform some on-line measurements, as expected in the breeding blanket. This is an essential component in future fusion power plants to provide tritium self-sufficiency and its performance must be continuously monitored. Some Test Blanket Modules (TBMs) will be installed in ITER to provide the first experimental data to validate the predictions on tritium production and recovery. In the meantime, within EUROfusion program, the mock-up of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed Test Blanket Module (HCPB TBM), previously used for the TBM experiment at the Frascati Neutron Generator (FNG), had been installed at JET to test some detectors and for benchmarking numerical codes used for breeding blanket assessment during DTE2 campaign. A diamond detector, calibrated to measure the tritium production through neutron detection inside the HCPB TBM mock-up, was tested during some plasma pulses of the DTE2 campaign at JET. The main outcome is that, as far as neutron emission rate is below 10 15 s −1 , neutrons are properly detected along the plasma discharge evolution by TBM diamond detector, consistently with the JET neutron monitor KN1. Moreover, the amount of tritium measured ( E ) is 1.40 × 10 –12 tritons per source neutron and the comparison with MCNP radiation transport simulation ( C ) gives a ratio C / E = 0.77. Such measurements, considered promising, and their comparison with calculations are discussed in the present work. Criticalities emerged are analyzed and some improvements proposed with the main purpose of speeding up signal processing to make the system capable of working at higher plasma neutron emission rates.