Preliminary design of the ITER AC/DC converters supplied by the Korean Domestic Agency

► A self-supporting aluminium structure and symmetrical thyristor assembly are devised to assure a strong and reliable ITER converter. ► Converters are designed to be installable in a compact space with three times higher power density than normal industrial installations. ► Heating of the building structure due to high magnetic field by converters are identified and certain solutions are addressed in the building design. ► A cooperative fast control scheme is adopted to compensate fast reactive power change of up to the level of 900Mvar. The preliminary design for ITER AC/DC converters under the responsibility of the Korean Domestic Agency is performed on the basis of the engineering experience of previous R&D for a full-scale 6-pulse CS (Central Solenoid) converter unit. This paper describes key features of the preliminary design for the respective sub-systems; integrated self-supporting aluminium structure and symmetrical thyristor assembly for strong and reliable converters, optimised impedance of the converter transformer to limit short circuit current, coaxial-type AC bus bars to shield high magnetic field around wall penetrations, compact components to fit into given building space. The insulation and the minimisation of electrical loops of concrete rebar below the converter installations are essential to prevent floor heating. Required output voltage or current of converters is provided by a conventional controller. A master controller is designed to collect predicted reactive powers from each converter and deliver processed data to the reactive power compensation (RPC) system to improve the regulation speed of the RPC controller with fast feed-forward compensation under fast reactive power transients.