Preliminary Study on Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Energy Transfer

Abstract This study focuses on energy transfer within the implosion target of a Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor (LICFR). The study involves an analysis of heat transfer and tritium production within the Tritium Breeding Blanket (TBM) and the energy cycle of the secondary loop. The research is based on an operating condition of 200MW. Super critical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) is utilized to cool the first wall of the TBM. Lead-Lithium (PbLi) is employed as both a coolant and tritium breeder material. With the characteristics of this dual-cooling setup, a multi-stage Brayton cycle is established and analyzed. The calculations couple the Monte Carlo code OpenMC with a self-developed heat transfer model. The study investigates the S-CO2 and PbLi dual-cooling blanket models under the 200MW operating condition. Based on the results of these calculations, optimizations are made to the structure and coolant parameters, and a multi-stage Brayton cycle is designed accordingly. The research results show that the nuclear-thermal coupling model is capable of providing preliminary calculations. Tritium production and energy extraction from the blanket are influenced by both the dimensions of the reactor cavity and the breeding zone.