Izvestiya vuzov. Yadernaya Energetika

The peer-reviewed scientific and technology journal. ISSN: 0204-3327

Hybrid Fusion-Fission Reactor Facility: Power Profiling

9/23/2022 2022 - #03 Physics and technology of nuclear reactors

Bedenko S.V. Lutsik I.O. Matyushin A.A. Polozkov S.D. Shmakov V.M. Modestov D.G. Prikhodko V.V. Arzhannikov A.V.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26583/npe.2022.3.04

UDC: 621.039.5

The current state of research aimed for utilizing the fission processes of heavy and fusion of light nuclei in creation of energy facilities for consumers makes possible to predict the development of modern energy industry in the direction of creating hybrid power plants. Such facility includes one subsystem containing heavy hydrogen isotopes for the fusion process and another subsystem represents blanket loaded with isotopic composition fuel characteristic of typical industrial fission reactors. As one of the examples such facilities is a detailed project for the tokamak with reactor technologies designed in Russia, in which thermonuclear plasma torus is covered by a blanket with nuclear fuel. Another scientific community well-known project of a hybrid reactor is a volume loaded with fuel for nuclear fission reactors which receives from the outside an additional neutron flux produced in heavy isotopes due to irradiation by a high energy proton beam from a high-power accelerator. The implementation of such hybrid power plant with usage of external neutron fluxes emerging from the tokamak plasma or from a target irradiated by the proton beam from a high-energy accelerator turns out to be acceptable for practice only with its tens of Gig watts power. This power level determines the possibility of creation such power station in a very distant future.

In contrast to the direction of research on the creation of gigantic energy hybrid plants, our research is aimed at the development of the facility for a power level about 100 MWth at using the positive features of hybrid plants. The creation of hybrid plants with mentioned moderate power level is quite possible in the next fifteen to twenty years. In this case, it opens up possibility for practice application of the energy hybrid plants in an acceptable, relatively short time.

This article describes the results of studies of the thermophysical and gas-dynamic characteristics of the operating state of the fusion-fission reactor facility proposed in our previous paper. This facility consists of an axial symmetric assembly of fuel blocks of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor and a linear configuration plasma source of additional neutrons. The paper demonstrates the results of joint optimization thermophysical and gas-dynamic studies in order to decrease the radial energy release field offsets formed in the facility volume intended for the neutron multiplication. These offsets accrue as result of the pulsed mode of the D–T neutron source operation.

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Link for citing the article: Bedenko S.V., Lutsik I.O., Matyushin A.A., Polozkov S.D., Shmakov V.M., Modestov D.G., Prikhodko V.V., Arzhannikov A.V. Hybrid Fusion-Fission Reactor Facility: Power Profiling. Izvestiya vuzov. Yadernaya Energetika. 2022, no. 3, pp. 42-52; DOI: https://doi.org/10.26583/npe.2022.3.04 (in Russian).

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