Thermal-hydraulics design and analysis on a helium-cooled high power density blanket for a fusion–fission hybrid reactor

Designs for a conceptual design of fusion–fission hybrid fuel breeder reactors with that use a helium-cooled high power density blanket has attractiveness have conceptual attractiveness. Helium gas is a good coolant for the fuel zone of the blanket in such a reactor in terms of neutronics performance. However, it is difficult to use helium gas as a coolant to carry away a high power density heat regime due to its low heat-carrying capacity. This paper proposed a scheme of for a helium-cooled high power density blanket for a fusion–fission hybrid reactor with about 100 MW/m3 average power density in the fuel zone. The preliminary feasibility of this scheme was demonstrated by calculating and numerically simulating the pumping power, temperature and stress distribution.