Design progress of the ITER blanket remote handling equipment

The ITER blanket (BL) is composed of about 400 modules in the vacuum vessel (VV). The BL has to be maintained by remote handling means due to high radiation levels in the VV after D-T operation. The remote handling (RH) equipment for BL maintenance consists of articulated rail, supports, a rail-mounted vehicle, a telescopic arm, an end-effecter, tools and related systems such as transfer casks and umbilical system.Towards the construction, the BL RH equipment design has been improved and developed in more detail, based on the 2001 FDR design. The overview of design results is introduced in this paper. The design of rail deployment system of the BL RH has been updated to enable the rail connection in the transfer cask in order to minimize occupation space at storage area. For this purpose, design work has been performed for concept, sequence and typical simulation of BL replacement in the VV and rail deployment/storage of the RH equipment in the cask, including cask docking. In particular, the technical issues of the rail connection in the cask are (1) tight tolerance of a pin at a hinge, (2) limited space for the connection inside a cask and (3) tight positioning accuracy. This paper summarizes the idea to solve these issues and the results of the design work. The paper also introduces new cable handling equipment, rail support equipment and BL module transporter.