Availability analysis of the ITER blanket remote handling system

ITERブランケット遠隔保守システムにおける稼働率解析

丸山 孝仁; 野口 悠人; 武田 信和; 角舘 聡

Maruyama, Takahito; Noguchi, Yuto; Takeda, Nobukazu; Kakudate, Satoshi

The ITER blanket remote handling system (BRHS), which handles blanket modules inside the vacuum vessel and will be procured by Japan Atomic Energy Agency, is required to replace 440 blanket first wall panels in two years. We employed an RBD approach in this analysis. The availability was calculated numerically by using a Monte Carlo method with the RBDs. The BRHS will replace 440 first wall panels in a 250 Gy/h radiation environment. Although radiation-hardened components are used in the BRHS, radiation is still the main cause of failures. The analysis considers two scenarios. One is called "initial scenario" in which spares or actions to improve availability were neither prepared nor implemented. The other is called "expected scenario" and has effective spares and actions. Availability was calculated as 41% in the initial scenario. In this case, the probability to replace all 440 first wall panels in two years was 65%. Based on these results, we applied three actions to the expected scenario to improve availability: preparing spares, optimising repair timing, and repairing cameras in the vacuum vessel. These actions shorten the time to repair. In the expected scenario, availability and completion probability improved to 49% and 99.5% respectively due to the three actions that shorten time to repair. Therefore, we concluded that the BRHS will have the availability to replace all 440 first wall panels in two years as required.