Evaluation of Material Design Limits for TBM Applications

The aim of the work presented is, firstly, an evaluation of existing design rules considered for austenitic steels exhibiting hardening cycle by cycle contrary to the reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steels (RAFM), which soften under cyclic loading. Secondly, it is a definition of the range of operation temperatures and loads for the current design of the test blanket module (TBM). Results of cycling tests of the EUROFER 97 performed by J. Aktaa & R. Schmitt have been thereby used to adjust material parameters needed for an ABAQUS-own combined non-linear isotropic-kinematic hardening model. Furthermore, the visco-plastic material model considering material damage implemented recently as an ABAQUS user material (UMAT) has been applied for simulations and the results have been compared with those obtained using the material model mentioned above