PROCESS FLOW AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE ITER CRYOGENIC SYSTEM.

The ITER cryogenic system is presently under design by a large international collaboration. It will start commissioning at Cadarache, south of France in 2015. The system is designed to provide an equivalent refrigeration capacity of 65 kW at 4.5 K for the superconducting magnet and 1300 kW at 80 K for the cryoplant pre-cooling stages and the Cryostat Thermal Shields (CTS). The cryoplant consists of three 4.5 K refrigerators and two 80 K helium loops coupled with two LN2 modules. Two 4.5 K modules are dedicated to the magnet system and a small one is devoted to the cryopumps and Pellet Injection System. One Interconnection box interfaces the cryoplant and a complex cryodistribution system which includes 5 Auxiliary Cold Boxes dedicated to each cryogenic subsystem. The ITER cryogenic system will have to cope with various normal and abnormal operational modes including superconducting magnets quench recovery and fast energy discharge. We will present the general Process Flow Diagram of the cryoplant and cryodistribution system and the operation requirements. The functional analysis of the cryogenic system will be performed leading to a proposal of the cryogenic control system architecture. The instrumentation and control requirements will also be outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]