S. Kakudate, M. Nakahira, K. Oka, K. Taguchi,
K. Obara, E. Tada, K. Shibanuma1,
A. Tesini1, R. Haange1, and
D. Maisonnier2
Reactor Structure Laboratory, Tokai-JAERI, Tokai-mura,
Ibaraki-ken, Japan
1 ITER Joint Central Team, Naka-machi, Naka-gun, Ibaraki-ken, Japan
2 The NET Team, c/o IPP, Garching 85748, Germany
Abstract. In ITER, the in-vessel components such as blanket are to be
maintained or replaced remotely since they will be activated by 14 MeV
neutrons, and a complete exchange of shielding blanket with breeding blanket
is foreseen after the Basic Performance Phase. The blanket is segmented into
about seven hundred modules to facilitate remote maintainability and allow
individual module replacement. For this, the remote handing equipment for
blanket maintenance is required to handle a module with a dead weight of
about 4 tonne within a positioning accuracy of a few mm under intense gamma
radiation. According to the ITER R&D program, a rail-mounted vehicle
manipulator system was developed and the basic feasibility of this system
was verified through prototype testing. Following this, development of
full-scale remote handling equipment has been conducted as one of the ITER
Seven R&D Projects aiming at a remote handling demonstration of the ITER
blanket. As a result, the Blanket Test Platform (BTP) composed of the
full-scale remote handling equipment has been completed and the first
integrated performance test in March 1998 has shown that the fabricate
remote handling equipment satisfies the main requirements of ITER blanket
maintenance.
IAEA 2001