The blanket is the medium that allows the heat energy to be extracted from the fusion reactor as well as the breeding of tritium to be used in fuelling the plasma. The difficulty encountered in the design of this component lies in the inherent requirement not just to multiply and moderate the incoming neutrons but also to use these neutrons in order to breed the necessary amount of tritium needed to run the fusion reactions. The assessment and selection of blanket designs for a reactor must be based on the functional compatibility of the various components and materials. Criteria that are important and are accounted for in the selection are material compatibility and structural integrity, identification of temperature operational limits and integration with an efficient thermal energy conversion system.
