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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Poloidal field magnets | The last ring

    As the massive ring-shaped coil inched its way from the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility, where it was manufactured, to the storage facility nearby where i [...]

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  • Heat rejection | White "smoke" brings good news

    Like a plume of white smoke rising from a cardinals' conclave to announce the election of a new pope, the tenuous vapour coming from one of the ITER cooling cel [...]

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  • WEC 2024 | Energy on centre stage

    The global players in the energy sector convened in Rotterdam last week for the 26th edition of the World Energy Congress (WEC). The venue was well chosen, wit [...]

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  • Fusion world | The EU blueprint for fusion energy

    The EU Blueprint for Fusion Energy workshop, convened by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy, brought together key stakeholders in the fiel [...]

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  • Neutral beam injection | ELISE achieves target values for ITER

    Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, have generated the ion current densities required for ITER neutral beam injecti [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Coil winding facility

Toward new activities

In August 2010, close to 13 years ago, construction work began on a vast workshop for the manufacturing of ITER's largest ring-shaped coils. Designed and financed by Europe, the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility was the first building to rise on the ITER platform. Since, it has been host to one of ITER's most spectacular and challenging industrial ventures: the step-by-step fabrication, under the responsibility of procuring agency Fusion for Energy, of four poloidal field coils ranging from 17 to 24 metres in diameter and from 200 to (nearly) 400 tonnes in weight. As the last two coils enter late-stage production activities at the far end of the assembly line, the rest of the building has become available for other tasks. On Monday 3 April, Fusion for Energy handed over approximately one-fourth of the shop floor to the ITER Organization for assembly and installation activities.

Thirteen years after Europe began manufacturing activities in the onsite Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility, Fusion for Energy handed over approximately one-fourth of the shop floor to the ITER Organization. Pictured here are ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi and Fusion for Energy Acting Director (interim) Jean-Marc Filhol as they jointly sign the handover documents. (Click to view larger version...)
Thirteen years after Europe began manufacturing activities in the onsite Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility, Fusion for Energy handed over approximately one-fourth of the shop floor to the ITER Organization. Pictured here are ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi and Fusion for Energy Acting Director (interim) Jean-Marc Filhol as they jointly sign the handover documents.
In the coming months, after a large door is created in the north wall facing the cryoplant, the ITER Organization will use the space previously occupied by the coil winding table and adjacent work station to proceed with thermal shield repairs. Later this year, in September, a second partial handover will extend the Organization's "exclusive area" to about half of the facility's space. In this newly acquired territory, ITER will set up the port plug test facility, whose components will arrive from Russia. By mid-2024, after the final coils PF4 and PF3 have been delivered and all coil-related activity has ended, a final handover will give the ITER Organization complete ownership of the building. At the far end, where the concrete slab can withstand pressures on the order of 42 tonnes per square metre, ITER will conduct divertor cassette assembly operations and other heavy-duty activities.

Throughout the manufacturing process, knowledge and skills were acquired by dozens of different actors working in synergy to produce the largest superconducting coils ever designed. (Click to view larger version...)
Throughout the manufacturing process, knowledge and skills were acquired by dozens of different actors working in synergy to produce the largest superconducting coils ever designed.
"More than a formal handover, what we are celebrating today is the quality of the work which has been and continues to be done in this building," said ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi before signing the official documents with his counterpart, Fusion for Energy Acting Director (interim) Jean-Marc Filhol.

The Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility was not merely an industrial building, it was a place where unique tools and processes were refined and optimized, and where knowledge and skills were acquired by dozens of different actors working in synergy to produce the largest superconducting coils ever designed.

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