A report on the first remote handling operations at JET

The first fully remote handling operations on a fusion Tokamak have been co mpleted at JET. The JET MkIIa divertor has been successfully removed and re placed with the MkII gas box divertor configuration using only remote handl ing methods inside the JET torus. This shutdown required the handling of ov er 450 components over a 15 week period operating 20 h per day and 6 days p er week. The JET remote handling equipment functioned and performed almost flawlessly with only two significant faults. The total operational time los t due to equipment problems was less than 3 days. The operations proceeded safely and without significant problems. No time was lost due to either ope rator induced equipment problems or operational errors. A number of new tas ks were successfully included in the operations at short notice. Some new t asks were identified immediately before the shutdown but with sufficient ti me available to test their feasibility using the mock-up facility. Others w ere only evident after the shutdown had started. The successful implementat ion of the shutdown and in particular of the unprepared tasks has been due to the high degree of adaptability provided by the JET man-in-the-loop remo te handling approach. (C) 1999 Eurotom. Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.