Overview of ITER TBM program objectives and management

One of the most important ITER missions is to test tritium breeding blanket (TBB) concepts that would result in tritium self-sufficiency, an extraction of high grade heat and net electricity production in future fusion reactors. Knowledge of the TBB performance characteristics in the integrated fusion nuclear environment is essential to designing the TBB of the DEMO and the fusion reactor. Three equatorial ports in ITER are allotted for testing test blanket modules (TBMs), which are mock-ups of the TBB, allowing up to six TBMs to be simultaneously installed and tested - two TBMs per each port. Conceptual designs for all TBM systems are now completed, and the important next milestones are the achievement of the preliminary and the final design by 2025. The TBM systems will be installed during Assembly Phase III, which is planned to start in 2030, and tested during the ITER Pre-Fusion Power Operation 2, which is planned to start in 2032. This paper describes the objectives and management aspects of the TBM Program. Copyright (C) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.