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Fusion Engineering and Design

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Neutronics analysis of the IVVS/GDC plug in ITER

D. Leichtle, U. Fischer , A. Serikov
Association KIT-Euratom, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, D-76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

a r t i c l e
Article history: Available online xxx

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
A neutronics analysis has been performed to provide the input required for the design strategy for the InVessel Viewing System (IVVS) and the Glow Discharge Cleaning (GDC) plug units in the ITER tokamak. The focus of the analysis has been on operational loads to the GDC electrode head in the shielding position and on the activation and the decay photon radiation absorbed in the structural components of the entire system. To estimate the conditions for maintenance scenarios, the occupational dose rate around the isolated IVVS/GDC head has been calculated assuming the ITER SA2 irradiation scenario. The Rigorous 2 Step (R2S) method, developed previously at KIT, has been employed for the calculation of the shutdown dose rates. The GDC head, which is subjected to the highest neutron loads, gets heavily activated and dominates the decay gamma activity of the entire plug. Accordingly, the shutdown dose rate around the IVVS/GDC plug is dominated by the GDC electrode head. It is therefore recommended to separate the GDC head from the system prior to further operations inside the Hot Cell. All components, except the Be protective layer of the GDC probe, were shown to be classiable as low level radwaste according to the French regulations. 2012 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: ITER Diagnostics Neutronics Monte Carlo Occupational dose rates

1. Introduction The In-Vessel Viewing System (IVVS) and the Glow Discharge Cleaning (GDC) units have been designed to share common port plugs which are mounted in penetrations at the lower level of the ITER Vacuum Vessel (VV). The IVVS is a fundamental tool to perform in-vessel inspections between plasma pulses or during a shut-down [1]. The Glow Discharge Cleaning (GDC) system utilizes an electrode to produce glow discharges in the vacuum vessel (VV) for the cleaning and wall conditioning during intermediate maintenance periods. ITER employs in total six identical IVVS/GDC plug units mounted in six lower ports. Neutronics analyses are required to provide the input needed for decisions on the design strategy of the IVVS/GDC plug unit. This works reports on analyses to assess the operational loads on the GDC electrode head in the shielding position and on the activation and the decay photon radiation absorbed in the structural components of the entire system. To estimate the conditions for maintenance scenarios, the occupational dose rate around the isolated IVVS/GDC head is calculated employing the Rigorous 2 Step (R2S) method [2] for the calculation of the shutdown dose rates.

2. The IVVS/GDC plug unit A IVVS/GDC plug unit, as assumed for this work, consists of the following components (Fig. 1): the IVVS probe, capable of performing the laser-based in-vessel viewing and metrology; the GDC electrode, capable of producing glow discharge in the vacuum vessel; the IVVS deployment system, capable of moving the IVVS along the tube from the parking position up to the various working positions; the GDC deployment system, able to move the GDC in three positions, i.e. parked position (rear), shielding position during plasma operation, and working position (front) above the divertor cassette dome; the housing structure, which provides the support/guidance to the deployment systems (rails, racks, stops, etc.); and the VV port tube which is also provided with an end ange and is equipped with feed-troughs for the various services given to the deployment systems and to IWS and GDC. The IVVS/GDC plug extends over a length of about 11 m from the GDC tip to the rear end at the bioshield level. 3. Computational approach The methodological approach for the neutronics analysis comprises three computational steps: neutron transport, activation and decay photon transport calculations. Transport calculations are performed with the Monte Carlo code MCNP5 [3] using FENDL-2.1 [4] cross-section data. The inventory code FISPACT [5] is used for the activation calculations with EAF-2007 [6] activation cross-sections to provide the decay gamma sources in the activated material cells.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 721 608 2 3407; fax: +49 721 608 2 3817. E-mail address: ulrich.scher@kit.edu (U. Fischer).

0920-3796/$ see front matter 2012 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2012.02.068

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Fig. 1. Schematic view of the IVVS/GDC plug unit assumed for this work (blue: housing structure, purple: deployment systems, green: IVVS probe/GDC head) [1]. (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)

Shutdown dose rate calculations are performed utilizing the Rigorous 2-Step (R2S) approach developed previously at KIT [2]. The R2S code system couples neutron transport, activation and decay photon transport through automated interfaces enabling thus the tallying of neutron ux spectra and the sampling of decay photon sources on a user dened set of geometry cells of the MCNP model. Neutron and decay photon transport calculations are thus performed with the same detailed geometry model providing eventually the shut-down dose rate distributions. Nuclear responses are provided both in the IVVS/GDC cells and on a ne mesh grid superimposed to the IVVS/GDC plug and its surrounding. The geometrical model used for the neutronics calculations is based on the standard ITER Alite 3D-model, version 4.1. A preliminary MCNP model of the IVVS/GDC plug has been provided by Fusion for Energy, Barcelona [7]. The model has been corrected at KIT and integrated into the Alite 4.1 ITER model (Figs. 2 and 3). The main material of the plug is austenitic steel SS316L(N)-IG used for the structure. The GDC electrode includes a thin Be protective layer and a CuCrZr heat sink. Furthermore, cooling water and some Al2 O3 isolation layers are incorporated in the model. Note the exact geometrical arrangement of the GDC head in the shielding position where the VV opening, assumed for the IVV/DGC system, is plugged

Fig. 3. Vertical cut of the IVVS/GDC along its major axis.

by the GDC head, see Fig. 2, left side. According to the nal MCNP model, the GDC tip is recessed by 105 cm from the inner vessel shell. The coupled R2S calculation is based on the neutron ux distributions obtained in the IVVS/GDC plug and its vicinity. The activation and decay photon source calculations are performed for the full set of material cells according to the SA2 irradiation scenario prescribed for ITER safety analyses [8]. The SA2 operation scenario is based on the most recent understanding of plant availability, maximum pulse rates etc., but retains a reasonable degree of conservatism so as to provide the maximum activation in the short, medium and long terms after shutdown. The SA2 scenario refers to an irradiation extending over 20 (calendar) years according to the scheduled ITER operation. All FISPACT calculations are initiated by the R2S interface software to provide decay photon sources for the nal shutdown decay photon transport calculations. A special MCNP source routine is required to sample those photons from the

Fig. 2. Vertical (left) and horizontal (right) cuts of the GDC probe head. Cuts are adjusted to the GDC probe orientation.

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D. Leichtle et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design xxx (2012) xxxxxx 3 Table 1 Decay photon (SA2 20 years irradiation scenario) and operational nuclear heating rates (in Gy/s) at the GDC tip. Material Operational dose [Gy/s] Absorbed decay photon radiation dose [Gy/s] 0s CuCrZr heat sink Be layer SS316IG core rod SS316IG shaft 67.3 286 24.1 4.5 0.47 1.4 0.08 0.03 12 days after shutdown 3.9 103 4.1 103 1.2 103 6.4 104

Fig. 4. Vertical cut of the neutron ux density distribution [cm2 s1 ] along the IVVS/GDC plug calculated with MCNPs mesh tally.

The operational nuclear heating was calculated for all materials cells of the IVVS/GDC system. The photon contribution was shown to be dominant for the heating deposition in structural materials such as steel and copper. For the light mass element beryllium, the neutron heating is the main contributor. The operational nuclear heating rates are at very moderate levels. The maximum of about 0.6 W/cm3 is observed for the copper cap (CuCrZr-IG alloy) of the GDC tip. The total nuclear heat in the GDC electrode (Be, CuCrZr, and steel parts) amounts to 3.2 kW. 4.2. Activation inventory and waste classication The activation levels of the IVVS/GDC components have been assessed to enable their classication according to French radwaste regulations, adopted by ITER [9]. Accordingly, radioactive waste can be classied depending on specic nuclides activity, half-life and radio-toxicity. A so-called LMA limit (maximum level of activity) discriminates low active A-type waste from medium active B-type waste; only those types are relevant for ITER tokamak components. To have a conservative estimate regarding the waste treatment and the dismantling strategy, the full 20 years SA2 operation scenario with 12 days cooling time after shutdown was assumed. All components, except the Be protective layer of the GDC probe, were shown to be classiable as A-type waste. The Be cover will be Btype due to tritium whose specic activity is 3.85 108 Bq/g (LMA limit: 2 105 Bq/g). Thus only the Be layer of the GDC head has to be treated separately from the other activated parts of the IVVS/GDC plug. 4.3. Shutdown nuclear heating and absorbed decay photon radiation dose Shutdown decay photon heating calculations have been performed both for the MCNP5 cells of the IVVS/GDC unit and on a mesh superimposed to the IVVS/GDC plug and its close surrounding. The decay photon source distributions were obtained by FISPACT calculations for each specied material cell and each considered decay time making use of the neutron ux spectra provided by the preceding MCNP calculation for the material cells. Those output les can be read by a specically designed MCNP source routine. MCNP5 has been modied with this R2S photon decay source routine to simulate the decay photon transport in the activated components. The maximum decay photon heating at shutdown is only about 4 mW/cm3 in the Cu heat sink of the GDC probe. This is less than 1% of the respective maximum operational heating. The decay photon heating decreases rapidly to values of the order of 108 W/cm3 at the entrance to the bioshield, see Fig. 5. The heating due to decay photons is thus insignicant compared to the nuclear heating during operation. After 12 days of cooling time the decay photon heat is further reduced by two orders of magnitude in the GDC head. Table 1 compares the absorbed photon decay radiation dose rates to the operational doses in units of Gray/s.

activated material cells. As the IVVS/GDC plug remains in the tokamak after shutdown, the same MCNP geometry model as for the neutron transport run can be used. The Monte Carlo transport calculations were mainly performed on the HPC-FF/JUROPA high-performance supercomputer at FZ Jlich (FZJ) running MCNP in the parallel mode under the MPI communication technique. MCNPs mesh-based weight window generator technique has been employed to ensure statistically reliable results in all regions of interests across the IVVS/GDC port and its vicinity up to the cryostat. Typically, one billion source neutron histories were tracked in a transport calculation utilizing a few hundred processors on the HPC-FF computer cluster. 4. Analyses for operational and shutdown periods 4.1. Neutron ux and operational nuclear heating Total neutron uxes and neutron energy spectra have been calculated in the VITAMIN-J group structure (175 groups) in the MCNP cells of the IVVS/GDC plug and its close surroundings. The results were normalized to the nominal fusion power of ITER, 500 MW. 2 109 source neutron histories were tracked in a calculation consuming about 6200 CPUh on 560 CPU of the HPC-FF Computer at FZJ. The statistical errors achieved for the ux tallies in the geometry cells of interest are in general below 5%. The neutron ux distribution has been also calculated on a spatial mesh which extends over a length of about 11 m from the plasma chamber up to the rear part of the IVVS/GDC at the level of the bioshield. The weight window mesh generator was employed as variance reduction technique with a point detector tally located in the back of the IVVS/GDC plug for optimization of the weight window map. The resulting neutron ux density distribution is shown in Fig. 4 for illustration purposes. The highest neutron ux values are observed at the level of the rst wall (ca. 1014 cm2 s1 ). At the GDC electrode tip, the ux is already attenuated to a level of 1013 cm2 s1 and decreases rapidly further along the IVVS/GDC system due to the appreciable shielding performance of the steel/water mixture in the electrode head which compensates effectively the blanket module cut out. Over the length of the housing the ux gradient is rather small, and the ux level is attenuated by 3 orders of magnitude from the VV exit to the bioshield (around 105 cm2 s1 ).

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Fig. 5. Vertical cut of decay photon heating distribution at shutdown [W/cm3 ] after 20 years SA2 operation of ITER.

Fig. 6. Vertical cut of shutdown dose rate distribution [Sv/h] around the IVV/GDC plug (12 days after shutdown, 20 years SA2 operation scenario).

The decay-photon heating was shown to dominate the shutdown nuclear heating (afterheat) since there are no strong alpha-emitters in the materials of the IVVS/GDC and the beta radiation is 12 orders of magnitude lower than the decay photon heating. Based on the SA2 irradiation scenario, the total accumulated absorbed dose during the 20 years ITER operation would amount to 1100 MGy in CuCrZr and 400 MGy in the Steel core rod of the GDC probe. After shutdown, up to 12 days, the absorbed decay photon radiation sums up to 0.01 MGy in the heat sink and 0.004 MGy in the Steel core rod. 4.4. Occupational shutdown dose rate assessment The IVV/GDC plug need to be maintained during shutdown periods or occasionally be extracted from the torus and transported by a Transfer Cask System to the ITER Hot Cell for repair and/or replacement of components. The shutdown dose rate thus needs to be assessed to enable the safe handling of the activated IVV/DGC plug. To this end, the equivalent dose rate distribution around the IVV/DGC port plug has been calculated 12 days after ITER shutdown assuming the full SA2 irradiation scenario. Only the decay photon sources in the materials of the IVVS/GDC system have to be considered in this case assuming the plug is extracted from the torus. This is accomplished in the decay photon transport calculation without modifying the ITER model just by removing the activated materials from the ITER components surrounding the IVV/GDC system while not touching the materials inside the IVV/GDC. Thus the dose rate for the isolated IVV/GDC can be obtained without extracting it actually from the ITER model. MCNPs mesh tally feature was utilized to provide the shutdown dose rate distribution on a ne spatial grid in and around the IVV/GDC plug. The mesh size amounted to 6 m height and 3 m width covering the full length of the IVVS/GDC plug and extending also into the plasma chamber. Making use of the decay photon source distribution inside the IVVS/GDC plug and the specic R2S source sampling routine. Decay photon transport simulations were performed for about 4 109 source histories. The ICRP-74 ux-todose conversion factors [10] have been used to convert the decay photon uxes to effective biological radiation dose rates in units of Sv/h.

Fig. 6 shows the resulting map of the equivalent shutdown dose rate around the IVVS/GDC in a vertical cut. Note that the chosen color scale allows to differentiate the dose rate levels with two distinctive colors per decade. As expected, the dose rate around the IVVS/GDC plug is dominated by the heavily activated GDC electrode head with peaking values around 5 Sv/h in the center. Already about 1.5 m behind the GDC head the dose rate level is two orders of magnitude lower (<50 mSv/h) than at the tip of the electrode. Further downstream, the dose rate falls below 5 mSv/h. To facilitate the maintenance of the IVVS/GDC system it is therefore recommended to separate the GDC head from the other parts of the system thus reducing substantially the radiation loads for further operations with the system inside the Hot Cell. 5. Conclusion A dedicated neutronics analysis has been performed to provide input to the design process of a common IVVS/GDC plug unit. The focus has been on operational loads to the GDC electrode head in the so-called shielding position and on the activation and the decay-photon radiation absorbed in the structural components of the entire system. To estimate the conditions for maintenance scenarios the occupational dose rate around the isolated IVVS/GDC head has been calculated assuming the ITER SA2 irradiation scenario. The GDC head, which is subjected to the highest neutron loads, gets heavily activated and dominates the decay gamma activity of the entire plug. Accordingly the shutdown dose rate around the IVVS/GDC plug is dominated by the GDC electrode head. It is therefore recommended to separate the GDC head from the system prior to any further operations inside the Hot Cell. The shutdown nuclear heating in the materials of the IVV/GDC is mainly due to absorbed decay photon radiation and is signicantly less than the operational nuclear heating. All components, except the Be protective layer of the GDC probe, were shown to be classiable as low level radwaste (A-type according to the French regulations). Acknowledgments The work leading to this publication has been funded partially by the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of

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D. Leichtle et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design xxx (2012) xxxxxx 5 [3] X-5 Monte Carlo Team, MCNP A General Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code (Version 5, vol. I), Report LA-UR-03-1987, 24 April 2003 (revised 10.03.05). [4] D.L. Aldama, A. Trkov, FENDL-2.1: Update of An Evaluated Nuclear Data Library for Fusion Applications, Report INDC(NDS)-467, December 2004. [5] R.A. Forrest, FISPACT 2007 User Manual, Report UKAEA FUS 534, March 2007. [6] R.A. Forrest, J. Kopecky, J.-Ch. Sublet, The European Activation File: EAF-2007 Cross Section Library, Report UKAEA FUS535, March 2007. [7] J. Izquierdo, Fusion for Energy F4E, personal communication, July 2010. [8] M.J. Loughlin, N.P. Taylor, Recommended Plasma Scenarios for Activation Calculations, IDM Number: ITER D 2V3V8G v 1.1, ITER Organization, 28 October 2009. [9] S. Rosanvallon, ITER waste management: status of the studies April 2003, EISS Cadarache, Deliverable SL 33: End of Operation and Waste, EFDA Contract: 021025, Technical Note DER/STR/LCEP/2003/014, Rev.01, 09/2003; see also: S. Rosanvallon, S. Nordlinder, L. Fayette, G. Brunel, Waste management within the framework of ITER in Cadarache, Fusion Eng. Des. 69 (2003) 531. [10] ICRP Publication 74, Conversion coefcients for use in radiological protection against external radiation, Ann. ICRP 26 (3/4) (1996).

Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy) under contract no. F4E-OPE-144. The views and opinions expressed herein reect only the authors views. Fusion for Energy is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The analyses made use of an adaptation of the Alite MCNP model which was developed as a collaborative effort between the FDS team of ASIPP China, ENEA Frascati, JAEA Naka, and the ITER Organization. References
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Please cite this article in press as: D. Leichtle, et al., Neutronics analysis of the IVVS/GDC plug in ITER, Fusion Eng. Des. (2012), doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2012.02.068