Test Blanket Working Group meets in Aix
This week, starting on Wednesday, the Test Blanket Working Group will convene in Aix-en-Provence. Breeding blankets represent one of the major technological breakthroughs required from passing from ITER to DEMO, a demonstration reactor able to furnish electricity power to the grid. The breeding blanket and associated systems have to ensure tritium breeding self-sufficiency, to show good power conversion efficiency and to withstand high neutron fluence.
In order to comply with this mission, the ITER Test Blanket Working Group was officially established by the ITER Council and charged to define and coordinate an appropriate breeding blanket testing program in ITER. The main issues of this 20th meeting are thus to define the interfaces between the Test Blanket Modules (TBM) and the ITER machine, as well as to update the TBM testing plan. "We will also have to discuss how we can better formalize the contributions of the seven parties to the TBM program," the Chairman of the Working Group, Luciano Giancarli, said. The meeting takes place in the Aquabella Hotel and will last until Friday.