Systems engineering activities supporting the heating & current drive and fuelling lines systems integration in the European DEMO breeding blanket

This paper describes the contribution given by the application of the systems engineering approach to the European DEMO Breeding Blanket (BB) integration studies, focussing on the integration of Heating & Current Drive (H&CD) and Fuelling Lines (FL) systems. In particular, attention has been paid to the BB-H&CD and BB-FL interfaces identification, definition and capture of the proper interface requirements necessary to drive the integration process and, as a consequence, supply a feedback for the reciprocal design of the interconnected systems. The defined interfaces are synthetically described in the paper and the results of the interface requirements capture process are shown, discussing in detail the rationales behind the interface requirements definition. The implications of the selected interface requirements on the selection of the proposed H&CD and FL systems design options have been highlighted as well. Lastly, the open issues are discussed as well as the influence of the interface management process on the prosecution of the BB, H&CD and FL design activities.