HAPL's Potential Tritium Issues

Kirk L. Shanahan (ed.)Defense Programs Technology Section

Savannah River National LaboratoryAiken, SC

HAPL Review, Oct. 30-31, 2007

300 500 700 900

T (K)

dP/d

t (ar

b. u

.)

4th

5th

WSRC-STI-2007-00604

Background

Charter - To identify tritium issues potentially affecting a HAPL IFE reactor facility– not limited in scope or to a particular reactor design

Contributors – James Klein, Kit Heung, Elliot Clark,

Kirk Shanahan – SRNL

Kevin Sessions – SRS Tritium Facility

Format – whitepaper - began Oct. 2006, comments from PPPL and LANL, issued Jan. 29, 2007

HAPL's Potential Tritium Issues vs. ITER’s

HAPL facility will be very similar to ITER

Functions defined in ITER should be found in HAPL

Tokamak

VacuumTokamak Exhaust

Processing

Isotope Separation

System

Storage and Delivery

Fueling

Atmosphere Detritiation

Water Detritiation

Automated Control System

Analytical System

Q2

WaterMethaneInerts

Q2

WaterMethaneInerts

Q2

Trace-tritium gases (water, methane, inerts

D, TD, TDTH

Air/Gases

EffluentH2OHTO

T

Tritium Plant

,

Note: Q = H, D or T

Original Focus – Can we do it?

Early HAPL facility concerns focused on reactor core

Magnets

Upper Pole Blanket

Upper-mid Blanket

Lower-mid Blanket

Lower Pole Blanket

Ring Cusp Armored Dump

Point Cusps Armored Dump

6m

Courtesy G. Sviatoslavsky, University of WisconsinCourtesy C. Gentile, PPPL

Yes, we can – What next?

C. Gentile’s slide from 16th HAPL Workshop

Now that there is a reactor concept, time to consider T processing

HAPL's Potential Future

Fuel Recovery System

T in SolidsRecovery Sys.

Target Loading Facility

Tritium ExtractionSystem

Waste Handling Facility

* Analytical Services Embedded

*

*

*

*

*

But more functionality needed!

Regulatory Issues Immense!

Tritium Handling requires significant infrastructure as well• Accounting

― Inventory― Measurement QA

• Radiation Exposure Records― Personnel―Environmental

• Facility Documentation• Licensing and Regulatory Compliance• Waste Handling and Monitoring

Whitepaper’s Primary Conclusions

Major Point – need to start developing Conceptual Design of other needed facilities– Fuel Recovery System – recovers T from gas stream (already covered in

PPPL CD)– Tritium Loading Facility – loads the plastic shells and delivers to reactor

(LANL is working on part of this)– Tritium in Solids Recovery Facility – deals with tritium recovery from

particulates up to large parts – Tritiated Waste Handling Facility – Handles all non-recoverable tritium as

waste– Tritium Extraction System – remove T from breeder material

Several minor points made as well

Example of Details

Some specific detailed comments

– Possibility of T uptake in plastic shells?

– Specific choices for components in FRS CD may need more research (ITER is doing some of this now)

– Was worried about use of ferritic steel (but use is minimal to zero)

– Where do all the spallation products go?

– Further progress in defining the issues rests on the ability to specify stream compositions and time dependencies (flowcharts)

Some New Questions

Some specific questions

– T behavior in hot SiC?

– T recovery from FLiBe or PbLi?

– How do T issues change with higher temperatures and neutron damage?

Recommendations

Recommended Future HAPL Tritium Activities/Studies

– C-loading, particulates, etc., of FRS feed stream

– T uptake by plastics (Shells, ablation materials, other parts?)

– T uptake and impact on other materials of construction(SiC, PbLi, FLiBe, etc., and note that the process equipment will not be at high temp.)

– Radioactive material release estimates and ancillary waste issues