Assessment of a cooperative maintenance scheme for ITER divertor cooling pipes

Divertor cassettes will require scheduled maintenance during the lifetime of ITER. Standard maintenance procedures for cassette removal include connection/disconnection operations of the cassette body from the reactor frame. Remote handling (R.H.) means are therefore required to remove the electrical connector and cut/weld the cassette cooling pipes. ions of ITER design focused on a reduction of the divertor cooling pipes from the initial 6 in. straight pipes to 2.5 in. bent pipes. As a consequence of this new definition, the initial maintenance scheme where maintenance is completely performed from the inside of the pipe by one carrier becomes obsolete. tion based on the cooperative work between a carrier sent into the pipe to perform part of the maintenance operations and an orbital tool positioned by a manipulator mounted on the Cassette Toroidal Mover (CTM) has been devised. A reference working area is defined and used to perform CAD simulations with a manipulator model. Work area accessibility is assessed using a virtual cutting/welding orbital tool.