During the past few years, the ARIES team has developed advanced designs to
identify the physics and tecknology areas of high leverage for achieving e
nvironmentally attractive and economically competitive fusion power plants.
This paper documents the key neutronics parameters and identifies the nucl
ear issues for the most recent spherical and advanced tokamak designs. The
nuclear assessment played an important role during the design process. For
instance, the excessive radiation damage to the resistive magnet of the sph
erical tokamak design provided strong incentives to shield the center post
in order to prolong its lifetime and enhance the overall power balance. At
present, a number of advanced blanket concepts based on the SiC/SiC composi
tes are being investigated for the advanced tokamak study. An assessment of
the breeding performance of the candidate breeders (LiPb, LiSn, and FLiBe)
was conducted. The design implications are discussed along with issues rel
ated to the limited breeding potential of the LiSn and FLiBe breeders. (C)
2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.