An overview of US ITER test blanket module program

A testing strategy and corresponding test plan have been presented for the two proposed US candidate breeder blankets: (1) a helium-cooled solid breeder concept with ferritic steel structure and Be neutron multiplier, but without a fully independent TBM and (2) a dual-coolant helium-cooled ferritic steel structure with self-cooled LiPb breeding zone that uses a flow channel insert as MHD and thermal insulator. Example test module designs and configuration choices for each line of ITER TBM are shown and discussed in the paper. In addition, near-term R&D items for decision-making on testing of both solid breeder and dual-coolant PbLi liquid breeder blanket concepts in ITER are identified.