Recent developments in remote maintenance for Fusion Experimental Reactor in JAERI

Two types of 1/5 scale models have been fabricated and tested to confirm the feasibility of the concepts of the rail-mounted vehicle in-vessel maintenance system and the blanket handling system for ITER/FER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor/Fusion Experimental Reactor). As for the rail-mounted vehicle system, the deployment and storage of the rail, the replacement of the divertor plate and the accessibility to the first wall by the armor tile handling manipulator were demonstrated. As for the blanket handling system, the replacement of the blanket modules was also demonstrated. As the result of the demonstrations, the concepts of maintenance systems for the in-vessel components of divertor plates, armor tiles, and blanket modules were confirmed to be feasible. Therefore, the designs of these maintenance systems can be developed in detail on the basis of the database of the scale models in the engineering design phase of ITER/FER. >