Qualification of irradiation effects on ceramic breeder materials in fusion and fission systems

Abstract

Damage correlation parameters in fusion and fission reactor systems have been evaluated for the ceramic breeder materials Li4SiO4 and Li2O. A sophisticated damage calculation taking into account all relevant primary knock-on atoms (PKA) was performed to obtain reliable displacement damage parameters for these low mass polyatomic materials. It is based on improved computer simulations of collision cascades within the bounds of the Binary Collision Approximation (BCA), using an extended version of Marlowe. Based on these calculations, it is shown, that PKA-dependent damage parameters such as the W(T)-function have to be considered to arrive at a concise fusion-fission correlation of irradiation effects. Such comparisons have been performed for typical fission neutron flux spectra of a thermal and a fast reactor system. Thermal fission reactor spectra tailored with a Cd shield are shown to enable the best simulation of typical fusion reactor conditions in this respect.