DEVELOPMENT OF JACKETING TECHNOLOGIES FOR ITER CS AND TF CONDUCTOR

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has developed jacketing technologies for ITER Toroidal Field (TF) and Central Solenoid (CS) conductor. Full scale TF and CS conduits were fabricated using carbon‐reduced SUS316LN and boron‐added (∼40 ppm ) high manganese stainless steel (0.025C ‐22Mn ‐13Cr ‐9Ni ‐0.12N: JK2LB), respectively. Welding condition was optimized so that back bead does not interfere a cable insertion. The weld joint samples were compacted by a compaction machine that was newly constructed and tested at 4.2 K. Mechanical characteristics at 4K of CS, TF conduits and CS welded joint satisfied ITER mechanical requirements. TF welded joint shows slightly lower value of 0.2% yield strength (885 MPa) than that of ITER requirement (900 MPa). The TF conduit contains nitrogen content of 0.14%, which is minimum value in ITER specification. The lower nitrogen content may be caused by the release of nitrogen from molten metal during non‐filler welding resulting in a 4 K strength decrease. To satisfy the ITER requirements, minimum nitrogen contents of conduit should be increased from 0.14% to 0.15% at least. Therefore, JAEA successfully developed TF and CS conduits with welding technologies and finalized the procurement specification for ITER conductor jacketing.