European effort towards consolidating the design and manufacture of the ITER in-vessel components

The design of the in-vessel components represents one of the greatest technical challenges of the ITER machine. Europe has always played a very important role in supporting the design of the divertor and its high heat flux components, the first-wall the shield blanket and in developing and testing essential technologies and strengthening reliable manufacturing processes. This paper highlights the main research and development activities in progress in the European Fusion Programme in preparation of the start of ITER construction, to qualify all the technologies to be used, in particular, for the manufacture of the ITER plasma facing components and to demonstrate their compliance with the design requirements. It also describes some of the most outstanding problems that are still at issue in the design especially of the first-wall and that must be resolved to achieve the performance and machine availability goals and minimize the associated technical risks. The design and R&D priorities which are foreseen to achieve these aims are briefly mentioned.