A Pellet Model of DT Ignitor and DD Fuel for an ICF Reactor without Tritium Breeding Blanket

Abstract
A pellet concept of a DT ignitor and DD fuel for an ICF reactor without a tritium breeding blanket is analytically examined under the condition that T is bred through the DD reactions. There is the additional restriction that the tritium breeding ratio in a pellet is unity, including the in situ DT burn in the DD region. Model calculations show that sufficiently high pellet gain can be obtained in a DT-DD pellet, when fuel ρR increases to ∼40 g/cm2 and the fraction of energy released in the DD region becomes dominant. One-dimensional neutronics calculations carried out for a reference pellet model with ρR∼40 g/cm2 show that the neutron heating in the compressed pellet model is evident and the total energy of the neutrons escaping from the pellet is reduced from ∼2000 MJ to 330 MJ for a microexplosion of ∼3000 MJ.

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