Tritium and heat management in ITER Test Blanket Systems port cell for maintenance operations

•The ITER TBM Program is one of the ITER missions.•We model a TBM port cell with CFD to optimize the design choices.•The heat and tritium releases management in TBM port cells has been optimized.•It is possible to reduce the T-concentration below one DAC in TBM port cells.•The TBM port cells can have human access within 12h after shutdown. Three ITER equatorial port cells are dedicated to the assessment of six different designs of breeding blankets, known as Test Blanket Modules (TBMs). Several high temperature components and pipework will be present in each TBM port cell and will release a significant quantity of heat that has to be extracted in order to avoid the ambient air and concrete wall temperatures to exceed allowable limits. Moreover, from these components and pipes, a fraction of the contained tritium permeates and/or leaks into the port cell. This paper describes the optimization of the heat extraction management during operation, and the tritium concentration control required for entry into the port cell to proceed with the required maintenance operations after the plasma shutdown.