DEMO toroidal field coil fast discharge unit integration studies

Abstract

The Fast Discharge Units (FDUs) of the Superconducting (SC) Toroidal Field (TF) coils in the European demonstration fusion power plant DEMO warrant the machine integrity over its full lifetime against severe failure events, such as SC coil quenches or any other plant events requiring the safe TF magnet system discharge. A low (75 kA) and a high current (105 kA) configuration are under study for the TF coils for DEMO. The FDUs must be extremely reliable for the purpose of commutating in short time (∼1 s) the currents and to discharge the TF magnets safely into resistors outside of the tokamak building. Malfunctions of the FDUs must be avoided. The FDUs are considered as Safety Important Class (SIC) components that need to discharge high amounts of energy of about 161 GJ (@75 kA) resp. 118 GJ (@105 kA) stored in the DEMO TF coils.The TF FDUs Circuit Breakers (CBs) shall be installed in the lower level of the tokamak to minimize the length of the connecting busbars. The FDUs integration is challenging because of the high neutron and gamma radiation and stray magnetic fields of the tokamak.Since in DEMO the neutron fluence over lifetime is much higher than in ITER, the problems of using FDUs with electronic subsystems was expected to be more severe, so that their integration has been considered from the beginning of the DEMO project. Sufficient shielding or possible re-positioning of the whole FDUs or sensitive FDU components compared to ITER are being investigated, to reduce the neutron fluxes and neutron and gamma ray fluences. Alternative concepts, e.g., fully mechanical CBs are studied in the EUROfusion Work Package Plant Electrical System (WPPES) in parallel.This paper presents the CAD integration work on the DEMO TF FDUs supported by neutronics assessments. It is assumed the same FDU technology as in ITER. The magnet feeder´s integration is commenced at the same time.