Transverse Tritium Engineering and Tritium Integration Across the EU DEMO Project

Abstract

Progressing the design of the EU DEMO power plant increasingly requires an integrated approach as the project progresses, to ensure that interfaces are coherent and to identify potential tritium-related conflicts between different parts of the program. Thus, the function of transverse tritium engineering has been created in the DEMO Central Team Design work package. In this conference proceeding, a brief introduction to the DEMO organization and those parts of the project that are tritium related will be highlighted—these extend beyond the obvious tritium breeding and fuel cycle areas, to areas such as balance of plant and remote maintenance, all underpinned by a strong relationship with the safety and environment function. The transverse tritium engineering activity ensures that tritium is considered in all relevant design sprints and work packages and provides awareness of the issues relating to the use of tritium to those unfamiliar with the field. Driven by considerations such as tritium and HTO toxicity, tritium scarcity, and waste and decommissioning factors, four core tritium design principles have been derived to drive the best practice and awareness across the project. These are: 1) tritium inventory minimization; 2) tritium confinement; 3) tritium management and control; and 4) minimization of the use of other hydrogen isotopes. To identify where tritium should be considered during design activities, the pathways taken by tritium through an operational reactor are identified—both intended and unwanted. In addition, the entire life cycle of EU DEMO is considered. Integration between work packages is facilitated by the creation of interface identification documents in conjunction with system engineering to establish parameters such as mass balances and the establishment of trade budgets for important parameters affecting multiple work packages, such as tritium inventories and tritium release limits.