Shutdown dose rates in-cryostat outside the EU-DEMO vacuum vessel

Future fusion reactors using deuterium–tritium fuel will exhibit high fluences of high-energy neutrons inside and around the reactor vacuum vessel (VV). As well as causing material damage, fusion neutrons will activate materials, the decay of which leads to radiation fields in and around the reactor after shutdown. Gamma-ray emission from activated materials is a particular radiological hazard during periods of reactor shutdown. This must be accounted for in the design of the reactor shielding to ensure that risks are reduced as low as reasonably achievable. Recent neutronics work has evaluated the shutdown dose rates (SDDRs) in the EU DEMOnstration power plant (DEMO) around the ports and throughout the cryostat, incorporating prospective shielding improvements to the VV and ports. Prior to the proposed shielding design improvements, calculations for the model including the helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) blanket showed that radiation leakage through the blanket and VV leads to biological-equivalent SDDRs (following 12 days’ decay) above 103μSv/h throughout the cryostat, ignoring additional contribution from radiation streaming through the port openings. Inclusion of the proposed VV changes reduces this dose rate to below 100 μSv/h. The work finds an approximate order-of-magnitude reduction in SDDR throughout the cryostat when all proposed shielding improvements are applied, leading to dose rates in the cryostat in the range of hundreds to thousands of μSv/h for the full model. The work shows that to further reduce dose rates inside the cryostat, improving the shielding performance of the ports is required, with particular emphasis on the lower port and the equatorial electron–cyclotron launcher which currently dominate the dose rates. •Proposed EU-DEMO shielding improvements are incorporated into neutronics models.•Gamma-ray dose rates following shutdown are calculated throughout the cryostat.•Approximate order-of-magnitude dose rate reductions result from the improvements.•Vacuum vessel design changes are found to be effective in reducing radiation leakage.•Targeted shielding around the equatorial and lower ports should be prioritised.