Potential and limits of water-cooled Pb-17Li blankets and diverters for a fusion power plant

Blankets and diverters are key components of a fusion power plant. They hav e a large impact on the overall plant design, its performance and availabil ity, and on the cost of electricity. The water-cooled Pb-17Li (WCLL) blanke t uses reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steel as structural material . It was previously validated under numerous aspects such as TBR, mechanica l and thermo-mechanical stability, thermal-hydraulics, MI-ID, safety and ot hers. This was done assuming the specifications for a European DEMOnstratio n reactor which were fixed back in 1989. A WCLL blanket would best be combi ned with a water-cooled divertor so that a single coolant could be used for the entire reactor. Several divertor designs were proposed recently. This paper investigates the applicability of the WCLL blanket concept and a wate r-cooled divertor in attractive power reactors with increased power densiti es compared with DEMO. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.