Requirements and selection criteria for the mechanical pumps for the ITER tritium plant

The ITER tritium plant requires many mechanical gas pumps for its operation. The correct selection of pumps is important not only to meet the requirements of the various processes in terms of pressures, flow rates, etc., but also they must be reliable and maintainable. Pumps will not be purchased for several years but they will then be required to operate over the 20 years of the operational lifetime of ITER and possibly beyond. Failures must be expected over the lifetime of the tritium plant, so attention will be paid to maintenance, noting that all components will be installed in glove boxes. A prediction of the availability of replacement pumps over this period will have to be made. An analysis of the requirements of all pumping stages within the tritium plant has been made and compared with performance of the available pump types. Factors that have been considered are whether to use single compound pumps or several individual smaller, simpler pumps at any pumping stage. This analysis is leading to the reduction of the types of pumps used.