ITER plasma-facing components

The ITER plasma-facing components directly face the thermonuclear plasma and include the divertor, the blanket and the test blanket modules with their corresponding frames. The divertor is located at the bottom of the plasma chamber and is aimed at exhausting the major part of the plasma thermal power (including alpha power) and at minimising the helium and impurity content in the plasma. The blanket system provides a physical boundary for the plasma transients and contributes to the thermal and nuclear shielding of the vacuum vessel and external machine components. It consists of modular shielding elements known as blanket modules which are attached to the vacuum vessel. Each blanket module consists of two major components: a plasma-facing first wall panel and a shield block. The test blanket modules are mock-ups of DEMO breeding blankets. There are three ITER equatorial ports devoted to test blanket modules, each of them providing for the allocation of two breeding modules inserted in a steel frame and in front of a shield block.