Physics R&D for ITER is being undertaken on a voluntary basis in the Parties' core fusion programmes, with the objective of minimizing uncertainties and validating ITER design assumptions. This work is coordinated through the International Tokamak Physics Activity.
Regarding the technology for ITER, although ITER has largely been designed on tried and tested technical solutions, the scale of the components, the tight tolerances, and the severity of the component usage, dictate that manufacturing and performance of key components be tested to show they will work in this application. ITER brings together several leading-edge technologies working safely in combination, including those needed for
- large, high field, superconducting magnets
- large-scale cryogenic systems
- components withstanding high-power densities
- tritium handling and breeding systems
- advanced plasma heating systems
- advanced remote handling and robotics
During the ITER EDA Parties worked together through their universities, laboratories and industries on major projects to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of key technological features of ITER. Each Party contributed from its own special areas of strength to an integrated common effort. This spirit has continued since the end of the EDA in 2001, with an ever-increasing focus on R&D underpinning manufacturing, and now involves the new Participants in Negotiations.
During the EDA, apart from a few other key item developments at smaller scale, the bulk of the R&D focused on seven critical areas, each the subject of a "Large Project" aimed at validating key aspects of the ITER Design. Such activities included
- development and qualification of the applicable technologies by testing at different scales,
- development and verification of industrial techniques to be used for component prototypes manufacturing,
- definition and verification of the comprehensive quality control and quality assurance programmes.
The projects fall into three basic categories:
- magnet and conductor manufacture and performance proof of principle at full scale;
- vessel and in-vessel component manufacture and performance proof of principle at full scale;
- in-vessel remote handing equipment and technique demonstration at full scale.
The hardware of these Large Projects were produced and assembled, and the testing programmes of these prototypes used to determine their operating margins in performance, to optimise their flexibility in operation, and sometimes to train their future operators. This work is now largely completed, although some facilities are still active. For example the CS model coil is still being used for conductor development.
The Large Projects shared certain common features:
- they were typically multi-stage activities involving multiple Party contributions and cross-dependencies, and high industrial content;
- each had a unified management structure and organization in which Project responsibility was shared between the JCT (now international Team) and the Home Teams (now Participant Teams).
The technical output from the Seven Large R&D Projects has had a direct importance in validating the technologies and related manufacturing techniques and QA incorporated in the ITER Design and in supporting the manufacturing cost estimates for some key cost drivers.
The Projects also have had a general importance as exemplars of cross-Party complex ventures and hence as precursors to possible joint construction activities.