Modeling Tritium Transport in Pbli Breeder Blankets under Steady State

Tritium behavior in the breeder/coolant plays a crucial role in keeping the tritium loss under an allowable limit and realizing high tritium recovery efficiency. In this paper, progress toward the development of a comprehensive 3D predictive capability is discussed and presented. The sequence of transport processes leading to tritium release includes diffusion and convection through the PbLi, transfer across the liquid/solid interface, diffusion of atomic tritium through the structure, and dissolution-recombination at the solid/gas interface. Numerical simulation of the coupled individual physics phenomena of tritium transport is performed for DCLL/HCLL type breeder blankets under realistic reactor-like conditions in this paper. Tritium concentration and permeation are presented and the MHD effects are evaluated. Preliminary results shows that the MHD velocity profile has the significant effect in preventing tritium permeation due to the higher convection effects near the wall.