Conceptual design of the supercritical CO₂ cooled lithium lead blanket for CFETR

A conceptual design of the supercritical CO₂ cOoled Lithium-Lead (COOL) blanket has been proposed as one advanced blanket candidate for the Chinese Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor (CFETR). At present, the COOL blanket is designed to fulfill the requirement of operating under the fusion power of 1.5 GW of CFETR while realizing the tritium self-sufficiency. Structural designs are carried out for outboard and inboard blanket segments and analyses with regard to neutronics and thermo-hydraulics are conducted to evaluate the blanket performance. Results indicate that a comparatively high Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR) of 1.183 and a PbLi outlet temperature of 600 – 700°C can be achieved for this blanket concept. Besides, a Power Conversion System (PCS) based on the supercritical CO₂ recompressing cycle is preliminarily designed for the blanket and the gross thermal efficiency is estimated to be 39% – 46% when assuming the turbine inlet temperature ranges between 550°C and 650°C.