The examination of the FNSF maintenance approach

A few of the key highlights covered in this paper include: •The FNSF maintenance approach establishes guidance for future fusion plants.•The horizontal sector maintenance approach is preferred to the vertical approach.•Autonomous robotic maintenance will be a mainstream technology when FNSF is built.•Power Core maintenance times are estimated to yield an acceptable plant availability.•Hot Cell requirements and functionality are conceptualized for a fusion power plant. This paper addresses an approach to maintain and sustain the high-intensity Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) experimental fusion facility that would enable it to have extended operations exceeding several exchanges of the primary power core components. The maintenance approach must be safe, quick, reliable, repeatable and precise. Moreover, this approach and equipment should be able to be extrapolated to the future fusion demonstration power plant (DEMO). A preliminary evaluation is presented for the underlying maintenance and safety requirements and the key design approaches that will define the FNSF and shape future high-power fusion facilities.