The DEMOnstration Fusion power Plant (DEMO) will be a key step towards Fusion Power Plant technology. It represents the single step to a commercial fusion power plant, in charge of demonstrating the viability of relevant technologies. Indeed, the development of tokamak sub-systems has to take into account interface, structural and functional requirements and multi-physics issues that can be completely known only during the development of the design process. This leads to difficulties to be faced during the conceptual design, mainly related to the identification of the main requirements, the change management and the sub-system integration. The Systems Engineering approach aims to support the design and management of complex systems over their life-cycles, providing a systematic approach for the definition of customer needs and required functionality from the early stage of the design, as well as for the design synthesis and the system validation and verification.
Among the tokamak sub-systems, the divertor is the one devoted to power exhaust management and represents, at the same time, one of the most challenging components, in terms of materials, technologies and manufacturing. Current design activities, conducted in the in the framework of EUROfusion Consortium are in a pre-conceptual phase. Despite the early design stage, a systems engineering approach is being applied as an integrated, interdisciplinary R&D effort.
The paper therefore presents the modeling effort to the conceptual design of DEMO divertor aimed at identifying both system main functions and expected behavior, given the constraints imposed from either project requirement or from current viability of technological solutions. To allow for flexibility in design needed to explore the feasibility of different solutions at this pre-conceptual stage, the impact of possible changes in high level requirement or interfaces is also investigated. This is also achieved through the allocation of the requirements to the affected components and providing efficient traceability. Therefore, the proposed modelling approach is intended to support the whole divertor conceptual design stage, allowing for requirements identification, traceability and change management.
Conceptual design of a laser fusion power plant. Part I. An integrated facility