Remote Handling Connector development for the ITER divertor diagnostics

ITER fusion reactor is a very complex machine which has several different subsystems. It is still a research reactor and the testing results will be implemented in the next generation reactors. In the testing phase of the reactor there will be several sensors and instruments assembled inside the vessel for diagnostics purposes. One of the key diagnostics areas will be the divertor environment. Due to replacement process there must be connectors between the cables inside divertor cassette and vacuum vessel. The connectors should be remotely accessible.
In the vacuum vessel there will be 17 divertors that will have diagnostics attached with electric wires. The amount of those wires varies between 30 and 202 in the cassettes. Total quantity of wires is over 2500, so the average of wires in each cassette is about 125. Some of the instrumented cassettes will be in standard cassettes and some central cassette depending to their location to the ports. Both standard cassette and central cassette can have different connector solutions. In addition the left and right cassette around the central cassette can have separate solutions depending on the space available and the structure of the connector. All the connectors must be connected by remote handling system because of the harsh environment inside the vessel.
In a development project seven concepts for the connectors were developed and analysed. The concepts were created by 3D modelling and simulation. Some critical parts and functionalities were analysed and tested with mock-ups. The selection criteria were created according to the requirements set for the connectors. An evaluation matrix was used for the analysis and expert evaluation was implemented with scaled factors. From the analysis three solutions were selected for the further development. In this paper the concept creation, the analysis and further research topics will be presented.