REMOTE HANDLING OF THE BLANKET SEGMENTS - TESTING OF 1 3-SCALE MOCK-UPS AT THE ROBERTINO FACILITY/

The remote replacement of blanket segments inside the vacuum vessel of a fusion reactor is probably the most complex task from the maintenan ce standpoint. Its success will rely on the definition of appropriate handling concepts and equipment, but also on a ''maintenance friendly' ' reactor layout and blanket design. The key difficulty is the lack of rigidity of the segments which results in considerable deformations s ince they cannot be gripped above their centre of gravity. These defor mations may be up to five times greater than the assembly clearance an d one order of magnitude larger than the required positioning accuracy . Experimental activities have been undertaken to select appropriate h andling devices and procedures, to assess the design of the components handled, and to review specific technical issues such as kinematics a nd dynamics performance, trajectory planning and control and sensors r equirement for the handling devices. Work was performed in the Roberti no facility where two handling concepts have been tested at a 1/3 scal e.