Final design and start of manufacture of the ITER Vacuum Vessel ports

Abstract

The ITER Vacuum Vessel (VV) features upper, equatorial and lower ports. Although the port design has been overall completed in the past, the design of some remaining interfaces was still in progress and has been finalized now. As the ITER construction phase has started, the procurement of the VV ports has been launched. The VV upper ports will be procured by the Russian Federation DA, while the equatorial and lower ports will be procured by the Korean DA. The main industrial suppliers were selected and development of the manufacturing design is in progress now. Since the VV is classified at nuclear level N2, design and manufacture of its components are to be compliant with the French code RCC-MR and regulations of nuclear pressure equipment in France. These regulations make a strong impact to the port design and manufacturing process, which is in progress now.

Starting manufacturing phase of ITER upper ports

“…These tolerances were nearly achieved on the previous full-scale mock-up manufactured by JSC Izhorskiye Zavody (St. Petersburg) [4] and it is expected that they will be achieved fully by completion of the current mock-up by MDT. Intermediate results obtained at complete inner shell (see Fig.…”

“…The port structures include the full-size ports at the upper, equatorial and lower levels of the machine and additional local penetrations at the lower level [3,4]. The port components are mainly of double walled construction with single walled parts included into some ports.…”

“…At the same time, this design is compatible with the sealing by the gaskets. Arrangement of the lip seals is described in [4] and its maintenance aspects in [6]. Recent efforts were focused on improving the gasket sealing concept (with the focus on the metaltype gaskets, such as Helicoflex ® ).…”

ITER lip seal welding and cutting developments

“…A general overview of the ITER vacuum vessel ports is given in [1]. The port plugs to be installed on the machine are of different types (Heating and Current Drive, Diagnostics, Test Blanket Module).…”

Design and manufacture of the ITER Vacuum Vessel

“…23. The contract for the manufacture of the upper ports has been recently awarded by Efremov Institute to MDT and startup activities are in progress [5]. In parallel, RF has already procured in parallel a first batch of plates and forgings.…”