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NITE-SiC/SiC has extremely densied microstructure compared with other SiC/SiC composite like CVI.
Excellent helium and hydrogen gas-leak tightness of SiC/SiC composites by DEMO-NITE method from prototype industrialization production line was
presented.
The excellence against stainless steel and Zircaloy at elevated temperature, together with generic excellent properties of SiC will be inevitable for
innovative blanket and divertors for DEMO- and power- fusion reactors.
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: SiC/SiC composite materials are attractive candidates for high heat ux components and blanket of fusion
Received 31 August 2015 reactor, mainly due to their high temperature properties, radiation damage tolerance and low induced
Received in revised form radioactivity. One of the challenges for SiC/SiC application in fusion reactors is to satisfy sufcient gas
20 November 2015
leak tightness of hydrogen and helium isotopes. Although many efforts have been carried-out, SiC/SiC
Accepted 27 November 2015
composites by conventional processes have not been successful to satisfy the requirements, except SiC/SiC
Available online 17 December 2015
composites by NITE-methods.
Toward the early realization of SiC/SiC components into fusion reactor systems process development of
Keywords:
DEMO-NITE process NITE-process has been continued. Followed to the brief introduction of recently developed DEMO-NITE
SiC/SiC composites process, baseline properties and hydrogen and helium gas leak tightness is presented.
Gas leak tightness SiC/SiC claddings with 10 mm in diameter and 1 mm in wall thickness are tested by gas leak tightness
High-heat ux component system developed. The leak tightness measurements are done room temperature to 400 C. Excellent gas
Blanket material leak tightness equivalent or superior to Zircaloy claddings for light water ssion reactors is conrmed.
The excellent gas leak tightness suggests nearly perfect suppression of large gas leak path in DEMO-NITE
SiC/SiC.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction SiC/SiC R & D for aerospace and nuclear fusion/ssion has been
accelerated since the Japanese invention of PCS type SiC bers, by
SiC/SiC is well recognized to be an attractive material for high late Professor S. Yajima of Tohoku University. During these four
heat ux components and blanket of fusion reactor, mainly due to decades many fabrication processes have been developed. Among
their high temperature properties, radiation damage tolerance and those processes, CVD/CVI based process and NITE process have been
low induced radioactivity [1]. One of the important properties for recognized to be the potential options for nuclear fusion/ssion
fusion application is gas leak tightness/permeability of H, D, T and application. However, SiC/SiC by CVD/CVI process has been recog-
He. This is important not only for fuel economy but also for safety nized to be inherently leaky and the necessity of SiC seal coating
concern [2]. For the case of gas cooling blanket, helium is going to [4] and the new direction to move to hybrid design employing
be a candidate of coolant gas, where helium backward leakage into metallic inserts or bladder are being pursued [5].
fusion plasma is detrimental for fusion reaction [3]. Whereas, Nano-powder Inltration and Transient Eutectoid
(NITE) processes has been intensively developed, starting at Kyoto
University [6] and now at OASIS, Muroran Institute of Technol-
Corresponding author at: Organization of Advanced Sustainability Initiative for
ogy. Helium gas permeability of SiC/SiC composite was investigated
Energy System/Material, Mizumoto 27-1-Y203, Muroran, Japan. Tel.: +81 43465657.
under the collaboration with Hokkaido University and CEA-Saclay
E-mail address: hayasaka@oasis.muroran-it.ac.jp (D. Hayasaka). Laboratory, where excellent helium gas tightness was reported [7].
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.11.044
0920-3796/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
D. Hayasaka et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 109111 (2016) 14981501 1499
2. Experimental procedure The inner pressure of the tube was below 0.01 MPa and there was
no detectable differences for the cases of SiC/SiC.
SiC/SiC tube with 200 mm in length, 10 mm in inner diameter The leak rate test apparatus detects and analyze the leak rate of
and 1 mm in wall thickness was evaluated in this work, as shown in helium and hydrogen gases those were sprayed to the outer surface
Fig. 1. SiC/SiC bers were aligned to 60 along tube axis in multi- of the sample, diffused through to the inner surface and released
layers. As reference materials, stainless steel tubes (SUS304) and into the inner cavity evacuated. There is a gas supply hole at the
Zircaloy tubes (Zircaloy-2) were also measured. center of the furnace. Outgassing of the test samples were done
Helium and hydrogen gas leak rate was measured by con- at 400 C for 30 min. in vacuum chamber and the test was done
ventional gas spray method to evacuated sample tube [11]. The immediately take out the samples from the chamber. Gas tem-
schematic illustration of the method is shown in Fig. 2. The fur- perature was below 25 C at the mass-spectrometer. The very low
nace used was cylindrical furnace with 15 mm inner diameter and level of helium and hydrogen signal was detected before starting
100 mm in length with Kanthal heaters, the maximum heating tem- the test and this was accounted as the background. The gas leak
perature was 800 C and the uniform heating length is 30 mm at the rate measured includes many source of noises and in this study
center of the furnace. The specimen temperature was measured valid detection limit was set to 2 1012 Pa m3 /s in helium and
at the center surface of the test tube by K type TC attached. The 1 108 Pa m3 /s in hydrogen.
coupling apparatus was used to connect the tube to the measuring
system utilizing O-ring and uorinated grease (Z-300 by Ulvac co.).
3. Experimental results
Fig. 1. DEMO-NITE SiC/SiC Tube studied. Fig. 3. Temperature dependence of helium leak rate.
1500 D. Hayasaka et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 109111 (2016) 14981501
4. Discussion
Acknowledgements
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