A Review of Irradiation Effects on Organic-Matrix Insulation
This review assesses the data base on epoxy and polyimide matrix insulation to determine whether organic electric insulation systems can be used in the toroidal field (TF) magnets of next generation fusion devices such as ITER* and TPX*. Owing to the difficulties of testing insulation under fusion reactor conditions, there is a considerable mismatch between the ITER requirements and the data that are currently available. For example, nearly all of the high-dose (5 x 10{sup 7} to 10{sup 8} Gy) data obtained on epoxy and polyimide matrix insulation employed gamma irradiation, electron irradiation, or reactor irradiation with a fast neutron fluence far below 10{sup 23}/m{sup 2}, the fluence expected for the insulation at the TF magnets, as set forth in ITER conceptual design documents. Also, the neutron spectrum did not contain a very high energy (E {ge} 5 MeV) component. Such data underestimate the actual damage that would be obtained with the neutron fluence and spectrum expected at a TF magnet. Experiments on a polyimide (Kapton) indicate that gamma or electron doses or mixed gamma and neutron reactor doses would have to be downgraded by a factor of up to ten to simulate fusion neutron doses. Even when neutrons did constitute a significant portion of the total dose, B-containing E-glass reinforcement was often used; therefore, excess damage from the {sup 10}B + n {yields} {sup 7}Li + {alpha} reaction occurred near the glass-epoxy interface. This problem can easily be avoided by substituting B-free glass (R, S, or T types).
- Research Organization:
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AI05-90ER54077
- OSTI ID:
- 761714
- Report Number(s):
- NISTIR-3999; TRN: US0401982
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Jun 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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