Speaker
Description
LIBRTI aims to drive world-leading innovation in the fusion fuel cycle by delivering a facility with a 14 MeV Deuterium-Tritium (DT) neutron source to support scientific work aimed at developing a better understanding of neutron and tritium transport at reactor scale. The facility will support experiments based on tritium breeder blanket concepts proposed by the fusion community, including solid ceramics, molten salts, and liquid metals as breeder materials.
Current tritium breeding experiments using fusion-relevant neutron spectra are limited to breeder volumes of around one litre. LIBRTI will scale this up by three orders of magnitude, exposing up to 6 m³ of breeder material to DT-produced neutrons, a step that introduces significant hazards, demanding a robust engineering approach.
As a starting point, experimental needs were gathered from three consortia, each representing a specific breeding technology. The engineering requirements, centred around compliance with applicable UK legislation, were also considered. These needs were mapped into functions using MBSE and decomposed into traceable requirements which were assigned using a system architecture, and documented in System Requirement Documents and interface specifications, initially in Excel and later in IBM DOORS, which provides a hierarchical, traceable, object-oriented database. Having these initial functional and physical interfaces in place allowed design activities across different organisations to progress while remaining open to future development, subject to scrutiny and formal approval through change requests.
In parallel, a safety justification process was established. Concepts of operation were developed through life cycle wide and normal and off-normal operation CONOPS workshops, followed by hazard identification (HAZID) sessions. Collaboration with lithium-handling experts defined pathways for hazard quantification, while in-house studies informed risk-reduction design choices.
Through these cross-disciplinary efforts, LIBRTI now rests on a robust engineering and safety framework, ready to progress through design, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning. As a first-of-its-kind platform, it will validate tritium breeding technologies at reactor-relevant scale as well as the simulations which will allow in-silico design development of breeder blanket concepts.
| Speaker affiliation | UKAEA |
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