Session RP1 - Poster Session VIII.
POSTER session, Thursday afternoon, October 30
Fran Hill Southeast Exhibit Hall, ACC
As pointed out in the Fusion Community "35 Year Plan" presented at the APS DPP in 2002 in Orlando, fusion materials that are low activation, have long lifetimes and can withstand high neutron fluxes are essential for fusion energy for both MFE and IFE fusion power systems. The present US 35 year proposed strategy for fusion materials development calls for building a test facility within the next ten years. Initial estimates put the cost of the International Fusion Material Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) at nearly $1B. We report the possibility of an initial, smaller scale fusion material testing facility built for a significantly lower cost utilizing the existing infrastructure of the $150M LEDA facility located at LANL. While the test volumes would be much smaller than the full scale IFMIF, there are significant advantages to beginning a smaller scale testing program sooner than the planned start of operations for the full scale IFMIF.