ITER blanket engineering challenges and solutions

The ITER blanket design process is very challenging due to demanding design and interface requirements and constraints, including high heat fluxes from the plasma, large electromagnetic loads during off-normal events, sufficient contribution to the shielding of the vacuum vessel and superconducting coils, and tight interfacing space constraints with many key components. This paper highlights some of these challenges and the associated solutions developed as part of the final blanket design effort.