Remote maintenance of Compact Ignition Tokamak ex-vessel systems

The use of deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel in the Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) will require applying remote-handling technology for ex-vessel maintenance and replacement of machine components. Highly activated and contaminated components of the fusion device´s auxiliary systems, such as diagnostics and RF heating, must be replaced using remotely operated maintenance equipment in the test cell. Throughout the CIT remote maintenance (RM) studies conducted to date, computer modeling has been used extensively to investigate manipulator access in these complex, tightly packed, and cluttered surroundings. A recent refinement of computer modeling involves the use of an intelligent engineering workstation for real-time interactive display of task simulations. Three-dimensional (3-D) kinematic computer models of the CIT machines are proving to be powerful tools in evaluating RM requirements. The use of the models is discussed