Design, performance and manufacturing analysis for a compact permeator

A fast and efficient recovery of bred tritium is a major milestone of tritium breeding technologies R&D for the demonstration of a fusion reactor tritium self-sufficiency. Permeator against vacuum (PAV) runs as a single-step process for tritium on-line recovery, acts as passive systems allowing to be thermally governed can be easily in-pipe integrated in LiPb loop systems and can be conceived with high compactness. An optimal PAV design is proposed with detailed design parameterization of tritium recovery efficiency at different velocity ranges from numerical simulation based on properly developed Openfoam® CFD code BelFoam® customized solver. Diverse structural design options are being considered to manufacture the PAV component that presents diverse manufacturing concerns. Fabrication options are exploring rolling of thin plate with internal armor in the vacuum gap up to the coating of a porous controlled thick wall. The aim of this paper is to emphasize on the advanced performance of the PAV proposed concept, to present and discuss the different technical solutions that have been studied as well as the fabrication tests carried out.