IVVS probe mechanical concept design

ENEA has been deeply involved in the design, development and testing of a laser based In Vessel Viewing System (IVVS) required for the inspection of ITER plasma-facing components. The IVVS probe shall be deployed into the vacuum vessel, providing high resolution images and metrology measurements to detect damages and possible erosion. ENEA already designed and manufactured an IVVS probe prototype based on a rad-hard concept and driven by commercial micro-step motors, which demonstrated satisfying viewing and metrology performances at room conditions. The probe sends a laser beam through a reflective rotating prism. By rotating the axes of the prism, the probe can scan all the environment points except those present in a shadow cone and the backscattered light signal is then processed to measure the intensity level (viewing) and the distance from the probe (metrology). During the last years, in order to meet all the ITER environmental conditions, such as high vacuum, gamma radiation lifetime dose up to 5 MGy, cumulative neutron fluence of about 2.3 × 1017 n/cm2, temperature of 120 °C and magnetic field of 8 T, the probe mechanical design was significantly revised introducing a new actuating system based on piezo-ceramic actuators and improved with a new step focus system. The optical and mechanical schemes have been then modified and refined to meet also the geometrical constraints. The paper describes the mechanical concept design solutions adopted in order to fulfill IVVS probe functional performance requirements considering ITER working environment and geometrical constraints. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.