MARS high-temperature blanket

The MARS high temperature blanket is designed for the dual applications of either high efficiency electricity production or process heat for synthetic fuel production. Other blanket design goals are tritium self-sufficiency, low tritium inventory, more than 40% of the blanket energy extracted at high energy, long lifetime in the neutron environment, no use of reactive liquid metals, minimization of long term activation and use of characterized materials and fabrication techniques. This challenging set of goals has been met with a novel blanket design that uses radial zoning and the unique properties of the lead-lithium eutectic, Pb/sub 83/Li/sub 17/, as a coolant/neutron multiplier/breeder. During the first year of MARS, the blanket design was optimized for electricity production. A reoptimization for the synthetic fuel application is in progress.