Cyclic testing of shear keys for the ITER magnet system

Shear keys are to be used to support the out-of-plane loading of the toroidal field (TF) coils during a plasma pulse in ITER. At the inner intercoil structures (IIS) a set of poloidal shear keys is used to take the shear load at each connection between adjacent TF coils. Solid circular keys have been selected as reference. At the outer intercoil structures (OIS) adjustable conical shear keys and friction joint based shear panels are used to take the shear load. Low voltage electrical insulation is required at the flanges of the IIS and OIS, plus for all the bolts, poloidal keys and adjustable keys. This electrical insulation has to withstand large compression associated with some shear or slippage. A ceramic coating was selected for this purpose. The main scope of the experimental campaign was the mechanical testing of the shear keys and the electrical insulation in operational conditions relevant to ITER. Both keys were made of Inconel 718, provided with a ceramic alumina coating and inserted into flanges made of cast AISI 316 LN. The adjustable conical shear key was pre-loaded at room temperature and subject to cyclic shear loads of 2.5 MN for a large number of cycles (about 30,000) at cryogenic temperature (77 K). The conical key and the alumina coating remained undamaged after the test. Another test campaign was then performed with higher shear loads (up to 3 MN) to reach a sufficient safety margin even with the friction effect due to the pre-load. A set of 15,000 cycles were completed followed by some cycles at higher loads to reach the ultimate limit, which is the shear load to be experienced by the key in case of a poloidal field (PF) coil short.