Innovative out-of-plane support of TF coils and implication to fusion core maintenance

To improve scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of the nuclear island, methods of supporting the out-of-plane TF loads so as not to interfere with maintenance operation would be highly desirable. Even if the toroidal field coil were extended outwardly to allow for maintenance to toroidally segmented modules, ideally there should not be structures in between coils in the outboard legs of the toroidal field coil. The number of these modules is the same as the number of toroidal field coils, and therefore one and only one module is removed between a pair of adjacent TF coils. Structural analyses of several cases that have the common feature of avoiding material in between the outer legs of the TF coil are presented in this paper. The implications on the structural amount of material required are investigated. 2 refs., 6 figs., 1 tab