NUCLEAR HEATING EXPERIMENTS FOR THE VALIDATION OF FUSION-REACTOR SHIELDING PERFORMANCE

Nuclear heating experiments were performed at the 14 MeV Frascati neut ron generator, with the purpose of validating the shielding performanc e of the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (ITER) shieldi ng system (first wall, shielding blanket and vacuum vessel). The exper iments consisted of the irradiation, with 14 MeV neutrons, of large as semblies that simulated, for size and material composition, the shield ing system and the toroidal field magnet. The nuclear heating was meas ured with different thermo-luminescent detectors, as a function of the penetration depth inside the assemblies. The experimental results obt ained were compared with the same quantities calculated with the same nuclear database and code used for nuclear heating calculations in the ITER design. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.