Configuration and maintenance of the ARIES-ST power plant.docVIP

CONFIGURATION AND MAINTENANCE OF THE ARIES-ST POWER PLANT X.R. Wang,a M.S. Tillack,a F.Najmabadi,a S. Malangb and the ARIES Team aFusion Energy Research Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0417 bForschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Postfach 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany Abstract- ARIES-ST is a 1000 MWe fusion power plant based on a low aspect ratio spherical torus (ST) plasma. The configuration and maintenance study of ARIES-ST was devoted to develop a credible configuration to accommodate the unique features of a highly-elongated low aspect ratio ST plasma, and to allow rapid replacement of the power core. Emphasis has been placed on design features leading to high overall availability of the power plant. Mechanical joints are possible in the normal conducting single-turn toroidal field (TF) coil system. This enables replacement of the entire power core as one single piece, and a relatively simple blanket and centerpost (CP) replacement scheme. Three general options for the ARIES-ST overall configuration and maintenance scheme have been explored. The final power core design configuration uses vertical maintenance from below. 1. INTRODUCTION The ARIES-ST maintenance philosophy is based on rapid removal and replacement rather than in-vessel manipulation. The availability of the power plant is maximized by utilizing single piece maintenance of in-vessel components. Components that are known to require frequent scheduled maintenance, e.g., the first wall, divertor plates, and blanket, are integrated as a single replacement unit. This approach is dramatically different from that of an experimental device such as ITER, due to several factors: Experiments have very low neutron fluence, such that frequent power core replacement is not anticipated. Availability is not driving motivation behind the design of experiments. Low availability is expected and tolerated. Mature power plants are assumed to achieve relatively high reliability,