EXPERIMENTAL BASE OF THE WWR-K REACTOR FOR IN-SITU INVESTIGATION OF TRITIUM RELEASE FROM MATERIALS

The WWR-K reactor is a unique 6 MW multi-purpose light-water research reactor. Desalinated water is the coolant and moderator, and beryllium is the reflector. Uranium dioxide enriched up to 19.7% on the uranium-235 isotope serves as fuel. Since the launch of the WWR-K reactor, studies of various materials of research reactors have been carried out on it. Beginning in 2000, work was carried out at the WWR-K reactor to study the materials of fusion reactor, namely, experiments to study the release of tritium from lithium ceramics. A facility was developed for in-pile reactor studies of tritium release from various candidate materials for a breeder blanket of a fusion reactor in an inert gas environment. A methodology was also developed for estimating the retention time of tritium in irradiated materials. In 2018, an installation for studying the materials of fusion reactors was created at the WWR-K reactor, at which it became possible to conduct experiments on irradiating samples in a vacuum. In this work, a description of the WWR-K reactor, experimental facilities, and their general technical capabilities as applied to the expected studies of tritium yield from the fusion reactor materials at the WWR-K reactor is presented.

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