Scoping studies on ITER tungsten first wall and borated water in Vacuum Vessel

The 2023 ITER rebaselining includes the replacement of beryllium (Be) First Wall (FW) with tungsten (W). Furthermore, at the March 2023 Technical Coordination Meeting (TCM) the investigation of borated water in Vacuum Vessel (VV) – Primary Heat Transfer Systems (VV-PHTS) has been requested. In this context, scoping studies were made by using ITER C-Model, to assess the impact of these design changes on nuclear heating of different Plant Breakdown Systems (PBS). The pre-and post-processing of the calculations has been carried out using F4Enix, a new open-source Python package for Monte Carlo simulations input and output files parsing developed at Fusion for Energy (F4E). This paper wants to show and provide physical explanation of the results of the scoping studies, with particular attention to radiation shielding of superconducting magnets. The analysis evidenced that a thickness of at least 3 mm of W is needed to reach the shielding performance of 10 mm of Be, and that borated water provides relevant nuclear heating reduction mainly in the Toroidal Field Coils (TFCs), but its usability is limited by different technical reasons.

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Publication Details

Journal
Fusion Engineering and Design
Published
2025-04-09
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2025.115030
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Fusion materials and technologies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.04
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article

Scoping studies on ITER tungsten first wall and borated water in Vacuum Vessel

Marco Fabbri, A. Portone, Davide Laghi, Alberto Bittesnich
2 citations
Fusion Engineering and Design
Fusion materials and technologies
1.04
article

Scoping studies on ITER tungsten first wall and borated water in Vacuum Vessel

Marco Fabbri, A. Portone, Davide Laghi, Alberto Bittesnich
article en
2 citations

Abstract

The 2023 ITER rebaselining includes the replacement of beryllium (Be) First Wall (FW) with tungsten (W). Furthermore, at the March 2023 Technical Coordination Meeting (TCM) the investigation of borated water in Vacuum Vessel (VV) – Primary Heat Transfer Systems (VV-PHTS) has been requested. In this context, scoping studies were made by using ITER C-Model, to assess the impact of these design changes on nuclear heating of different Plant Breakdown Systems (PBS). The pre-and post-processing of the calculations has been carried out using F4Enix, a new open-source Python package for Monte Carlo simulations input and output files parsing developed at Fusion for Energy (F4E). This paper wants to show and provide physical explanation of the results of the scoping studies, with particular attention to radiation shielding of superconducting magnets. The analysis evidenced that a thickness of at least 3 mm of W is needed to reach the shielding performance of 10 mm of Be, and that borated water provides relevant nuclear heating reduction mainly in the Toroidal Field Coils (TFCs), but its usability is limited by different technical reasons.

Fusion Engineering and DesignVol. 216
Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (ES), Fusion for Energy (ES), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (ES)
Clean water and sanitation
Openalex Percentile: Top 26%
Fusion materials and technologies
1.04
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