HIGH-ENERGY INTENSITY NEUTRON FACILITIES FOR TESTING FUSION MATERIALS

The current status of technology of neutron irradiation test facilitie s for the development of fusion materials is described focussing to th ose with a high feasibility of being constructed and brought into oper ation within a decade. Regarding the facility concept the system with the deuteron-lithium(d-Li) stripping type source has been considered a s the most realistic among the currently conceivable candidates. A ser ies of systematic surveys on facility design and neutron field charact eristics made recently by an international working group have reached the same conclusion. The base technology developed earlier by the FMIT Project (Fusion Materials Testing Facility Project, 1978-1985) has re cently been advanced in the accelerator technology aspect. In Japan, t he ESNIT Program has been promoted since 1988, in which the capability of energy selectivity has drawn special attention in resolving the is sues specific to the d-Li system. Considering designing, constructing and applying such a type of facility, a realism for a strategy of a st aged upgrading process was proposed, in which the actions are to start from a medium size unit module being followed by increasing the test volume in accordance with the progress of the materials development to wards the DEMO reactor.