• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2251-2260
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• 2021

The motion control of the divertor maintenance system of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) was studied in this paper, in which CFETR Multi-Functional Maintenance Platform (MFMP) was simplified as a parallel robot for the convenience of theoretical analysis. In order to design the motion controller of parallel robot, the kinematics analysis of parallel robot was carried out. After that, the dynamic modeling of the hydraulic system was built. As the large variation of heavy payload on MFMP and highly nonlinearity of the system, A Fuzzy-PID controller was built for self-tuning PID controller parameters by using Fuzzy system to achieve better performance. In order to test the feasibility of the Fuzzy-PID controller, the simulation model of the system was built in Simulink. The results have showed that Fuzzy-PID controller can significantly reduce the angular error of the moving platform and provide the stable motion for transferring the divertor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.2941-2951
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• 2023

The optimal minimum ECCD power is evaluated numerically for completely suppressing the 3/2 and 2/1 NTMs in the CFETR hybrid scenario. For two typical frequencies of ECCD sources launching from two upper launcher (UL) ports, f_ec = 210 GHz and 240 GHz with O1-mode, UL₁: (R_i, Z_i) = (8.47, 5.7) m and UL₂: (R_i, Z_i) = (8.2, 4.5) m, higher frequency of ECCD source launching from the UL₂ port is better than that low frequency counterpart from the UL₁ port. Using 240 GHz ECCD source launching from the UL₂ port, the minimum power required to fully suppress the two NTMs with precise ECCD alignment is 12.4 MW and 16.7 MW, respectively. When good alignment cannot be achieved, the results suggest that the misalignment should not exceed 0.02α, preferably 0.015α, corresponding to 4.4 cm and 3.3 cm. Considering engineering difficulty of high-frequency gyrotron sources, the optimal minimum ECCD power with the 210 GHz source launching from the UL₂ port is 17.9 MW and 20.6 MW for completely suppressing the 3/2 and 2/1 NTMs, respectively. In view of this, it is a good choice to select the 210 GHz ECCD source launching from the UL₂ port in the short and medium term.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.451-462
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• 2024

In order to optimize the operational safety and reliability of the upper launcher for the CFETR ECRH system, a design of the launcher based on the remote steering concept is currently being carried out for comparison with the front steering equivalent. This paper presents the remote steering system's conceptual design and simulation analysis. A Square Corrugated Waveguide (SCW) of 65 × 65 mm has been designed with an optimized length of 9.35 m. By changing the relative length of the waveguide, the transmission efficiency of the SCW is optimized within the range of steering angles ±12°. Different error factors are investigated in detail, and corresponding acceptable error ranges are provided. Considering these error factors and ignoring ohmic losses and thermal effects, the relative transmission efficiency of the SCW is estimated to be >98 % within the steering angle range. A matching steering unit for the SCW is designed, which consists of an ellipsoidal focusing mirror and a steerable flat mirror. The detailed design of the steerable mirror motion trajectory is presented. Also, the influence of the possible beam incident errors caused by the steering unit on the transmission efficiency is analyzed in detail.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.1619-1626
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• 2024

In order to optimize the operational safety and reliability of the upper launcher for the CFETR ECRH system, a design of the launcher for NTM control based on the remote steering concept is currently being carried out for comparison with the front steering equivalent. This paper presents the layout design and analysis of the quasi-optical system in the remote steering launcher. A 3D visual quasi-optical design tool has been developed for the quasi-optical system, which can parameterize modeling, perform general astigmatic beam calculation and show the accurate beam propagation path in the upper port. Three identical sets of quasi-optical modules are arranged in the launcher, and each one consists of two fixed double-curvature focusing mirrors, which focus and reflect the steering beams (- 12°-12°) from two square corrugated waveguides. The beam characteristics at the resonance layer are described, and the average beam radius is < 100 mm. The peak head loads on the surfaces of the two fixed mirrors are 1.63 MW/m² and 1.52 MW/m². The position and size of the beam channel in the blanket are obtained, and the opening apertures on the launcher-facing and plasma-facing sides of the blanket module are 0.54 m² and 0.4 m², respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3126-3132
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• 2023

To meet the increasing heating needs of the China Fusion Experimental Tokamak Reactor (CFETR), the output power in each Lower Hybrid Current Drive (LHCD) transmission line should be increased from 250 kW to 500 kW. Therefore, a new high-power water load must be developed for the 4.6 GHz 500 kW LHCD system. This paper aims to report the most recent research progress of the water load: aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic is used as the media material to isolate the water and vacuum, and the radio frequency (RF) simulation results show that the return loss of the water load is less than -25dB at 4.6 GHz over a wide temperature range. Under 500 kW continuous wave (CW) operation, the maximum temperatures of the ceramic and water are separately 67 ℃ and 62 ℃, resulting in thermal deformation of the ceramic of approximately 0.003 mm. Moreover, the AlN water load was tested on the 4.6 GHz 250 kW high-power test bench and found to work well with low reflected power.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3150-3163
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• 2023

To improve the performance of blanket: maximizing the tritium breeding rate (TBR) for tritium self-sufficiency, and minimizing the Dose of backplate for radiation protection, most previous studies are based on manual corrections to adjust the blanket structure to achieve optimization design, but it is difficult to find an optimal structure and tends to be trapped by local optimizations as it involves multiphysics field design, which is also inefficient and time-consuming process. The artificial intelligence (AI) maybe is a potential method for the optimization design of the blanket. So, this paper aims to develop an intelligent optimization method based on an improved multi-objective NSGA-III algorithm and an adaptive BP neural network to solve these problems mentioned above. This method has been applied on optimizing the radial arrangement of a conceptual design of CFETR HCSB blanket. Finally, a series of optimal radial arrangements are obtained under the constraints that the temperature of each component of the blanket does not exceed the limit and the radial length remains unchanged, the efficiency of the blanket optimization design is significantly improved. This study will provide a clue and inspiration for the application of artificial intelligence technology in the optimization design of blanket.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.11
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• pp.4274-4281
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• 2023

Blanket is of vital importance for engineering application of the fusion reactor. Nuclear heat deposition in materials is the main heat source in blanket structure. In this paper, the three-dimensional method for thermal-hydraulics/neutronics coupling analysis is developed and applied for the full-scale module of the helium-cooled ceramic breeder tritium breeding blanket (HCCB TBB) designed for China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). The explicit coupling scheme is used to support data transfer for coupling analysis based on cell-to-cell mapping method. The coupling algorithm is realized by the user-defined function compiled in Fluent. The three-dimensional model is established, and then the coupling analysis is performed using the paralleled Coupling Analysis of Thermal-hydraulics and Neutronics Interface Code (CATNIC). The results reveal the relatively small influence of the coupling analysis compared to the traditional method using the radial fitting function of internal heat source. However, the coupling analysis method is quite important considering the nonuniform distribution of the neutron wall loading (NWL) along the poloidal direction. Finally, the structure optimization of the blanket is carried out using the coupling method to satisfy the thermal requirement of all materials. The nonlinear effect between thermal-hydraulics and neutronics is found during the blanket structure optimization, and the tritium production performance is slightly reduced after optimization. Such an adverse effect should be thoroughly evaluated in the future work.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2630-2637
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• 2020

The structure design of divertor Multi-Functional Maintenance Platform (MFMP) actuated by hydraulic system for China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) was introduced in this paper. The model of MFMP was established according to maintenance requirements. In this paper, Newton-Euler method and the improved virtual work principle were used, the equivalent driving force of each actuator was obtained through the equivalent Jacobian inverse matrix derived from velocity relationship among the components. The accuracy of the model was verified by ADAMS simulation. The stability control of the heavy-duty components driven by hydraulic cylinders based on Newton-Euler method and improved virtual work principle was established.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2708-2715
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• 2021

The Multi-Purpose Overload Robot (CMOR) is a key subsystem of China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) remote handling system. Due to the long cantilever and large loads of the CMOR, it has a large rigid-flexible coupling deformation that results in a poor position accuracy of the end-effector. In this study, based on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, the spatial grid, and the linearized variable load principle, a variable parameter compensation model was designed to identify the parameters of the CMOR's kinematics models under different loads and at different poses so as to improve the trajectory tracking accuracy. Finally, through Adams-MATLAB/Simulink, the trajectory tracking accuracy of the CMOR's rigid-flexible coupling model was analyzed, and the end position error exceeded 0.1 m. After the variable parameter compensation model, the average position error of the end-effector became less than 0.02 m, which provides a reference for CMOR error compensation.