Mainz 1997 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help
P: Plasmaphysik
P 13: Postersitzung I
P 13.22: Poster
Tuesday, March 4, 1997, 16:00–18:00, Foyer
Development of Low-Level Tritium Targets for Use in Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactors — •N.A. Tahir1 and D.H.H. Hoffmann2 — 1Gesellschaft f"ur Schwerionenforschung, Planckstr. 1, 64291 Darmstadt — 2Physikalisches Institut Abt. 1, Universit"at Erlangen–N"urnberg, Erwin–Rommel Str. 1, 91058 Erlangen
The large fusion crossection of a deuterium-tritium reaction at relatively low temperatures of the order of 5 - 10 keV makes this fuel very attractive for use in future fusion reactors. However there are a number of problems associated with this type of fuel that must be solved before such a scheme is made available for civilian power generation. One of these problems is tritium handling as a working reactor will require a large tritium inventory. Since it is a radioactive substance, any accident involving tritium release would lead to radioactive hazards. It is thus desirable to minimize the tritium inventory in the power plant. In an inertial fusion reactor this could be achieved by using low level tritium targets. We have found that a target that contains a fuel mixture with a substantially reduced tritium content will still generate sufficient output energy to run the power plant economically. Also the tritium fractional burn in such low level tritium targets is very high which means that a very small tritium mass will be left over that will make the process of chamber evacuation much cleaner.