FEM structural analysis of ITER gravity supports

Because of the complexity of the load cases, the gravity support of ITER endures several large forces during operation besides the dead weight of the magnet system, such as electromagnetic force on the magnets, thermal load and seismic loads (SL). In order to verify the reliability of the design, and make the gravity support operate safely under the various load cases, it is very important to analyze the applied force on the gravity support in different load cases. In this paper, finite-element-method (FEM) is used for the structural analysis. 3-D FEM models of the overall gravity support system, with 20 degree sector and 360 degree respectively, are created by ANSYS according to different load cases. The 20 degree model in the torus is used for the structural analysis of the gravity support system under the several symmetric load combinations, and the 360 degree model is used for the structural analysis under the load combinations with the asymmetric SL. The analysis results are given, such as the static structural analysis and the buckling analysis for the different load combinations, and the modal analysis for the natural frequencies. The calculation results reveal that all of the gravity support components have enough safety margins against various load combinations. (authors)