Structural analysis of support structure for ITER vacuum vessel

Takeda, Nobukazu; Omori, Junji*; Nakahira, Masataka

JAERI-Tech 2004-068, 27 Pages, 2004/12

JAERI-Tech-2004-068.pdf:7.68MB

ITER vacuum vessel (VV) is a safety component confining radioactive materials such as tritium and activated dust. An independent VV support structure with multiple flexible plates located at the bottom of VV lower port is proposed. This independent concept has two advantages: (1) thermal load due to the temperature deference between VV and the lower temperature components such as TF coil becomes lower and (2) the other components such as TF coil is categorized as a non-safety component because of its independence from VV. Stress analyses have been performed to assess the integrity of the VV support structure using a precisely modeled VV structure. As a result, (1) the maximum displacement of the VV corresponding to the relative displacement between VV and TF coil is found to be 15 mm, much less than the current design value of 100 mm, and (2) the stresses of the whole VV system including VV support are estimated to be less than the allowable ones defined by ASME. Based on these assessments, the feasibility of the proposed independent VV support has been verified as a VV support.

Design and structural analysis of support structure for ITER vacuum vessel

Takeda, Nobukazu; Omori, Junji*; Nakahira, Masataka; Shibanuma, Kiyoshi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 41(12), p.1280 - 1286, 2004/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/18811248.2004.9726357

The vibration experiments of the support structures with flexible plates for the ITER major components such as toroidal field coil and vacuum vessel were performed using small-sized flexible plates aiming to obtain its basic mechanical characteristics such as dependence of the stiffness on the loading angle. The experimental results obtained by the hammering and frequency sweep tests were agreed each other, so that the experimental method is found to be reliable. In addition, the experimental results were compared with the analytical ones in order to estimate an adequate analytical model. As a result, the bolt connection strongly affected on the stiffness of the support structure. After studies of modeling the bolts, it is found that the analytical results modeling the bolts with finite stiffness only in the axial direction and infinite stiffness in the other directions agree well with the experimental ones. Using this model, the stiffness of the support structure for the ITER major components can be calculated precisely in order to estimate the dynamic behaviors.