Materials for the fusion reactor

Abstract

Development of fusion technology Is a long-term objective of the European Community, covering the construction at ten-year intervals of an experimental reactor, a demonstration reactor, and lastly the commercial reactor, based on magnetic confinement of a plasma of deuterium and tritium. Problems relating to materials involved in the programme are analysed with special reference to the reactor structures most directly exposed to the actions of the plasma and neutron flux. For the experimental reactor, in which the most complex problem concerns the interactions of such structures with the plasma, the possible solutions are necessarily limited to a few steels currently used in nuclear engineering For subsequent reactors the emphasis is on resistance to neutron damage and reduction of induced radioactivity. In that context steels and vanadium alloys with a highly controlled composition in regard to the presence of a number of elements are being studied. Development of such materials could allow exploitation of this inexhaustible energy source with extremely low environmental costs.