Radiation can damage or destroy electronic components or sensors, corrupt signals in analogue or digital circuits, corrupt data in memories, etc. These effects can appear progressively, due to cumulated ionization or cumulated atomic displacements, or instantaneously, due to a single highly ionising particle (the so-called Single Event Effects or SEE), or due to a strong blast of ionizing particles.
The ITER plant system will contain a large amount of electronics. Many of these parts will be, by necessity, located in areas exposed to radiation in the Tokamak Complex.
The purpose of the ITER Radiation Hardness Assurance is to ensure that for all ITER electronics exposed to radiation above alert thresholds, a radiation mitigation and/or a radiation qualification strategy is developed and implemented, in such a way that the electronics complies with its availability and reliability requirements.
