Participants:
| (ANL) | - |
| (Boeing) | - Waganer, Weaver |
| (DOE) | - |
| (FPA) | - |
| (FZK) | - |
| (GA) | |
| (GT) | |
| (INL) | |
| (MIT) | Bromberg |
| (NYU) | |
| (ORNL) | |
| (PPPL) | |
| (RPI) | |
| (UCSD) | Dragojlovic, Mau, Najmabadi, Wang |
| (UW) | El-Guebaly |
This conference call is part 1 of 2 to allow Les Waganer to present his talk on ARIES Cost Algorithms to the ARIES group. He had planned to give the talk at the May project meeting in Madison, WI, but the meeting ran out of time and his talk would have been too long to squeeze in. Les gave the first part on the direct costs of Plasma Confinement, Plasma Formation and Sustainment, Vacuum (power core), and Primary Structures. The remaining part 2 will address the indirect costs, financial assumptions, and annual costs. This second part will be presented in a conference call held on July 16th.
Les encouraged discussion and agreement on the cost topics discussed. He had researched the historical conceptual designs costing approach starting with Schulte in the 1980s, Starfire, Generomak, ARIES series and the most current Generation IV fission modeling group. He also explained how cost estimates are brought into the present with the use of Gross National Product price level deflators. All cost elements are presented in the year of their estimate and then translated into current 2008$.
On certain topics, Les made recommendations on how to improve the ARIES cost estimation process. In other areas, he gave the background and asked for inputs on how to proceed.
Les presented the historical development of the Level of Safety Assurance (LSA) and how it is being applied to ARIES cost estimates.
The direct cost accounts of Fusion Energy Capture and Conversion (22.01) and Plasma Containment (22.02) had previously been presented and Les summarized those results.
There was a lot of discussion on algorithms describing the Plasma Formation and Sustainment. The group on the call felt that the algorithms and parameters presented in the ARIES-II-IV final report were not being applied although the official reports said that these algorithms were being used. Les also noted that the cost numbers did not match the II-IV algorithms and the basic performance data and detailed cost data was not published. This was also typical of all other cost accounts – lack of detail about the primary influencing parameters and the detailed cost data were never published. TK Mau offered to help define the Plasma Formation and Sustainment subsystem. It was mentioned that the power supplies should be included in this account.
Les discussed the Vacuum subsystem for the power core. He had separated the vacuum vessel from the remaining vacuum equipment. However, the group recommended that the vacuum vessel be included in this vacuum system account. The detailed vacuum vessel study results from the ARIES-AT study would be the best source of design and cost data, providing that the design approach is similar. Farrokh Najmabadi suggested that turbo-molecular primary vacuum pumps be included as the main option as opposed to cryopumps.
Les presented a set of subsystems that comprised the Primary Structure and Support. Farrokh recommended that the supports related to the Plasma Containment be included in that account and that the vacuum vessel be integrated with the vacuum system. All the ASC outputs have reported masses and volumes of structural supports. These outputs are not clearly identified with any particular structural element, especially not the remaining structural subaccounts of Carry-Through Structure, Shield Pedestal, and Equipment Support Structure. The code results should be identified and associated with the new structural elements in the appropriate subsystem. Les noted that some structural items are not currently being used in the ARIES designs (and other contemporary designs) and should be removed.
Farrokh Najmabadi thanked Les for doing a great job gathering and analyzing the prior cost algorithms and databases. The list of action items that Les needs to implement is shown below (completed on 6/26/2008). Les said that he intends to complete the Account 22 and the other Accounts 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27.