Preliminary Conceptual Design of the ICRH Antenna for DTT: A Systems Engineering Approach

The Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility needs a large amount of heating power to study the problem of power exhaust in reactor-relevant conditions. Among the additional heating systems, the ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) is characterized by radio frequency (RF) components based on standard technology and well-assessed solutions due to the tight schedule of the DTT construction. Considering the harsh fusion operating conditions, the ICRH antenna design involves different and interacting physical fields to be managed by the systems engineering (SE) approach. Therefore, following step by step this methodology, the design started with the definition of the main requirements of the whole system. Then, the main functions have been identified with the aim to define the logical architecture of the whole antenna structure. In the end, a preliminary 3-D parametric model of the ICRH antenna with its subsystems has been developed adopting a top-down modeling approach in the CATIA V5 environment provided by Dassault Systemes. Key aspects of the 3-D model are the clear definition of the position in the available space of all subsystems and of their interfaces, and its parametrization. They allow to quickly implement the modifications required by the multiple iterations between the geometrical modeling environment and several multiphysics simulation environments to check the compliance with mechanical, electrical, thermofluid dynamics, and remote handling requirements.