Simulated installation of a breeding blanket segment in a two-port mover context

Abstract

The abstract relates to work undertaken on the Two Port Mover (TPM) Remote Maintenance (RM) concept in European DEMO. The focus of the study was to assess the operational procedures for installing the Blanket Leg Unit and Lower Port Winch of the Two-Port Mover. In addition, alternative means for constraining the rotations of the breeding blanket during the removal and installation process of blankets were studied.

The Two-Port Mover was tested in a dynamic simulation. The assessment process was carried out by using a Unity game-engine in a combination of AGX Dynamics for Unity plugin. The scope was to utilize virtual prototyping to visualize how the cabling of the studied Lower Port winch approach would interact within the Vacuum Vessel sector. Dynamic physics enables the cabling and the interface plate to collide with the surrounding environment and proper adjustments to the performed procedures can be validated already in the early stages of the design process. The final connection with the interface plate and the winches is performed by a remotely operated manipulator in a virtual environment. In the context of this simulation, the manipulator was controlled with a haptic device. This ensured precise control of the connection process, but also demonstrated how the cables would interact while operating the manipulator. Thus, influencing initial TPM design maturity.