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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Portfolio | Sector repair has started

    Built up against vacuum vessel sector #7, the scaffolding reaches almost 20 metres in height and masks the massive component. Streaks of blinding light, filtere [...]

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  • Fusion world | Public/private consortium is building the DTT tokamak

    The Divertor Test Tokamak in Italy is creating a new model for engagement with industry in fusion research. ITER helped to pave the way. The Divertor Test Tokam [...]

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  • Image of the week | An architectural paradox

    There is something deliberately paradoxical in the architectural treatment of the ITER buildings. On the one hand, the alternation between the mirror-like stai [...]

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  • Former French Prime Minister | A fan then and now

    For Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Prime Minister of France (2002-2005) who visited ITER on Friday 15 March, touring the ITER installation with ITER Director-Gene [...]

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  • CARE at ITER | New project values launched

    Collaboration, Accountability, Respect and Excellence drive the future of fusion for a diverse staff. When Pietro Barabaschi joined as ITER Director-General to [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

In the Tokamak's subterranean world



It's a world that evokes underground quarries, a cathedral carved out of rock, a pyramid's secret chamber... The space between the lower basement slab (B2) and the next-level slab (B1) of the Tokamak Complex is punctuated by 18 giant columns that will rise 30 metres when completed and provide structural support to the Tokamak Building.

In this cavernous space, thousands of embedded plates stud the ceiling, floor and walls like geometric constellations—these will be used to anchor the equipment that must be installed at every level of the building.

The thick walls between the massive columns will house pipe chases, and are made of extra-dense concrete that is formulated with magnetite gravel sourced in Swedish Lapland.

The only sunlight that enters this subterranean realm comes from regular double openings in the bioshield wall, reserved for the magnet feeders that will relay electrical power and cryogens to the ITER magnets.

What is today a vast open space around the Tokamak assembly arena will one day be occupied by the dense piping of the cooling water system primary circuit. Gone will be the cathedral-like space ... replaced by a forest of steel pipes and pumps.


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