MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING ASPECTS OF IFMIF IN THE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN STAGE

The conceptual design activity for the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF-CDA, 1995-1997) has recently attained its systems integration step incorporating three major subsystems, i.e. re mote handling cell/irradiation test assembly, liquid metal target and accelerators. The mission is to provide a facility for testing candida te materials for fusion power reactors to full lifetime performance an d also to provide scientific bases for calibration and validation of d ata from other radiation sources. The reference design considered to o vercome the technical barriers has remained since the time of the earl y Fusion Materials Irradiation Test Facility (FMIT) design, and follow ed closely the 'Users Requirements' in terms of the test volume, flux, flux spatial distribution, energy spectrum, attainable annual fluence , etc. Implications of the interfaces between the requirements and the design approaches are discussed, and a perspective of the engineering validation to be done prior to construction and operation is presente d.