7th RAMI & Standardization Board meets in Barcelona

The RAMI & Standardization Board held its 7th Meeting at European Domestic Agency headquarters in Barcelona.

 

RAMI stands for reliability, availability, maintainability and inspectability. It describes a process whose primary purpose is to make sure that all systems in the ITER machine will be available during the operation phase and will maintain their performance under operational conditions.

Representatives from the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies met or attended remotely to report and discuss new results obtained in the framework of the ITER RAMI approach and standardization process, and to validate the work program for the coming year.

 

The Board particularly appreciated the participation of a new member, Grigory Konovalov, representing the Russian Federation, as well as the attendance of several European Domestic Agency Responsible Officers which allowed direct interaction between the Board and the technical staff in charge of the procurement in Europe.

 

The meeting began with the presentation of the latest RAMI analyses and results regarding the diagnostics, the central interlock and safety systems and the cryoplant. The first iteration of RAMI analyses is drawing to a close; 27 plant systems have been analyzed since 2008 and all systems will have been covered by 2012.

 

The second day was dedicated to the ITER standardization effort, with a review of 2010 feedback and presentations by the working groups. The decision was made to use the Project Change Request process to implement the requirements and recommendations issued by the Board.

 

The 2011 work plan will focus on finalizing the technical specifications for the electrical motors, cryovalves, heat exchangers and water pumps for the cooling water system, and sensors and connectors before expanding the work to other components such as the other valves and cameras for safety and operation.

 

Regarding PCR-300, the ongoing Project Change Request for updating the RAMI requirements  and the update of the RAMI targets in the Project Requirements, the Board expressed its support to the new ITER Organization approach to define the requirements as availability targets per main function, rather than per plant system.

 

The last day of the meeting was devoted to the contribution of the Domestic Agencies to both RAMI and standardization programs.

 

The Board members were also invited by the European agency to visit the Alba Synchrotron Light Source located near Barcelona, which is nearing the end of its commissioning phase.