SIRIUS-T, an Advanced Tritium Production Facility Utilizing Symmetrically Illuminated Inertial Confinement Fusion

SIRIUS-T is a study of an advanced tritium production facility which utilizes direct drive symmetric illumination inertial confinement fusion provided by a KrF laser. Symmetrically illuminated reactor systems have some very unique problems which have to do with a large number of beams. In SIRIUS-T, a single shell ICF target is illuminated by 92 symmetrically distributed beams around a spherical cavity of 4 m radius. The driver energy is 2 MJ and the target gain 50. The first wall consists of graphite tiles bonded to an actively cooled vanadium structure. There is a 1.0 torr xenon buffer gas in the cavity. The structural material is the vanadium alloy V-3Ti-1Si, the breeding/cooling material is lithium 90% enriched in Li-6 and the neutron multiplier is Be, giving a tritium breeding ratio of 1.903. The total tritium inventory in the reactor is 184 g. A routine release of 29 Ci/d is estimated and the maximum accidental release is 19.9 g. At 100 MJ yield, a repetition rate of 10 Hz and an availability of 70%, a tritium surplus of 33.3 kg per calendar year is achieved. Using 100% debt financing, and a 30 full power year (FPY) reactor lifetime, the cost of tritium production is $8,885/g at 5% interest on capital and $14,611/g at 10% in 1990 dollars.