Improvements in the design and manufacture of the ITER FEAT first wall towards cost minimization

The ITER FEAT first wall (FW) has been designed with modular flat panels that are separable from the massive blanket shield, in order to reduce costs, to allow repair or substitution, and to reduce nuclear waste. Thermal stresses and induced electromagnetic loads in the structure of the FW are reduced well below the allowable values by introducing poloidal slots in its heat sink. The paper describes the reasons behind recent design modifications of the ITER FW and reports the main results of thermo-mechanical and structural analyses performed to verify the improved design.