Development of the ITER Continuous External Rogowski: From conceptual design to final design

In ITER, an accurate measurement of plasma current, with high reliability, is mandatory as this parameter is used to demonstrate licensing compliance with regulatory limits. For that purpose, several independent measurements based on magnetic diagnostics have been proposed. Rogowski coils are standard inductive sensors for current measurement in many applications. In ITER, three continuous external Rogowski coils are to be installed in the casing of the toroidal field coils. These sensors are remarkable from several points of view: overall length is about 40 m, high sensitivity needed, located in the toroidal field coil casing at 4.5 K and complex 3D routing with tight bending radius of 50 mm. Since 2005 an extensive work has been carried out to develop and analyze several design options complying with ITER specifications. Prototypes of a selected continuous external Rogowski design were built and tested successfully in terms of electrical, thermal, mechanical and vacuum characteristics. Finally a detailed assembly procedure inside the toroidal field coil casing has been defined according to the coil manufacturing and assembly constraints. (c) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.