Safety in the ARIES-III D3He tokamak reactor design

The ARIES-III reactor study is an extensive examination of the viability of a D-³He commercial tokamak power reactor. The ARIES-III reactor uses an organic coolant to cool the first wall, shield and divertor. The authors explored the potential for isotopically tailoring the 4-mm tungsten layer on the divertor in order to reduce the offsite doses should a tungsten aerosol be released from the reactor after an accident. They also modeled a loss-of-cooling accident in which the organic coolant was burning in order to estimate the amount of radionuclides released from the first wall. Because the maximum temperature is low, <600°C, release fractions are small. The authors analyzed the disposition of the 20 g/day of tritium that is produced by D-D reactions and removed by the vacuum pumps. The results reemphasize the need for low activation materials and advanced divertor designs, even in reactors using advanced fuels