The European breeding blanket design for ITER

In the frame of the ITER Engineering Design Activity (EDA), the European Home Team (EU HT), in collaboration with the Joint Central Team (JCT) and the three other HTs, has contributed to the development of a joint water-cooled solid breeder blanket design concept for the ITER Enhanced Performance Phase. In early 1997 the EU HT gradually arrived at a different basic layout characterized in particular by an enhanced degree of overall reactor relevance and then started a rigorous design activity for its validation. The main peculiarities of the EU HT proposal are (i) the use of beryllium in form of a pebble bed, (ii) the adoption of flat radial-poloidal cooling panels, and (iii) the confinement of the breeder pebbles in poloidally oriented circular elements. In addition to the design rationale, this paper describes the main results of the April-September 1997 design activity in the areas of neutronic, thermal, thermal-hydraulic, electromagnetic, structural, thermo-mechanical as well as tritium and safety analyses. A specific sub-section is devoted to the results of an industrial assessment of the blanket module manufacturing and assembly.