Helium Loop Karlsruhe (HELOKA): A valuable tool for testing and qualifying ITER components and their He cooling circuits

The purpose of this paper is to present the Helium Loop Karlsruhe (HELOKA), a new planned Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK) experimental facility, dedicated to the testing of various components for nuclear fusion facilities: the helium-cooled pebble bed blanket (HCPB), the helium-cooled-divertor for the DEMO power reactor and the high-flux test module (HFTM) for IFMIF. All these components have a very complex geometry, with many parallel cooling channels, involving a complex helium flow distribution. Therefore, these components should be tested full-scale before their assembly in ITER and IFMIF. Besides the individual testing of the blanket and divertor modules, the understanding of the behavior of their cooling systems in conditions relevant for ITER operation is mandatory. The main requirements and characteristics of the HELOKA facility and a preliminary conceptual design are described in the paper.