News

STAC & MAC - ITER running high

PDDG Norbert Holtkamp giving an update of the ITER project status to the STAC members. This week, the ancient Chateau de Cadarache is once again witness to another chapter being written in the history of the ITER project. Starting today, 19 May, the International Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) convenes in Cadarache to discuss the final design of ITER, the machine's scope and the schedule up to first plasma. From Wednesday onwards, the Management Advisory Committee (MAC) will follow. The recommendations made by these two committees will go to the ITER Council, the supervising body of the ITER project, that will meet in Aomori, Japan, on 18 June.

Monaco Fellowships have been extended

The deadline for application for the newly created ITER Fellowships sponsored by the Principality of Monaco has been extended until 31 May 2008. These ITER Postdoctoral Research Fellowships will allow recent PhD graduates to join the ITER Organization for a period up to two years.

For more information click here.

Reception

No more lost persons: the new receptionists Sebastian Chicca and Benoit Granel. We will miss them, those lost visitors wondering around our corridors, knocking on our doors asking for directions on how to find Mr or Mrs So-and-So.  Relief has finally arrived.  From last week, the ITER Organization has its own receptionists.

Sebastien Chicca (and his replacement Benoit Granel), employed by Dynapost, a company specializing in internal logistics, will be located right at the entrance of Building 519.  From now on he will be there every day between 8.30 and 11.30 and between 13.15 and 16.45 to handle incoming and outgoing mail and deliveries and also to welcome visitors and help them find their way in the ITER Organization buildings..
The reception's telephone number:- 9915

--- Iris Rona

Domestic Agencies

ITER Korea kick-off meeting

On 9 May, DG Kaname Ikeda attended the kick-off meeting of ITER Korea held in Deajeon. This meeting, which will be in the future held three times a year, was attended by all ITER related representatives within the Korean Government, research institutes and industry.

Portrait

"It would be difficult to find a working
environment quite like this"

Though ITER site preparations have only just started, some people have been with the project for 15 years…which gives an interesting perspective of how long it has taken to get ITER from its conceptual phase to an emerging reality.

Fascinated by Japanese literature and culrture - and ITER: Doris Spiegel has been involved in the project since 1993.When Doris Spiegel, Assistant to Project Deputy Director General Norbert Holtkamp, joined ITER in Garching in 1993, little did she expect that she would become so fond of working in a multi-cultural environment, that it would ultimately make her move in 2006 from her home city Munich to sunny Aix-en-Provence, where she feels now quite at home.  Doris is so much part of ITER and now Provence, that she even adopted her cat, Eddy, during last year’s ITER summer party. 

When she left high school, Doris’ area of predilection was literature rather than science.  She became fascinated by Japanese literature and history after reading the Tale of Genji, an 11th century Japanese novel. 

She studied Japanology to become a Japanese literature translator, but it didn’t work out that way.  After having worked as a translator and then for a Japanese company for a short while, Doris joined NET (Next European Torus) as a multi-lingual secretary in Garching in 1989 and then ITER in 1993.

And although she doesn’t practise her Japanese on a daily basis anymore it has remained the thread through her career.  So has the cultural diversity which is so characteristic of ITER.  “What I enjoy most in working for ITER is the mix of nationalities, languages and cultures, all working together to build this amazing machine”, says Doris, “this is what makes ITER unique, I think it would be difficult to find a working environment quite like this anywhere else.”

---Iris Rona

Picture of the Week

Enduring Vacuum

To build ITER and achieve first plasma to schedule will be an intellectual and physical marathon. Keeping fit therefore is essential, as Liam Worth knows. On Sunday this athletic member of the ITER vacuum group participated in the Provence Half Marathon in Manosque finishing in 2 hours and 8 minutes.

Focus On

ITER staff collect money for
earthquake victims in China

Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, the earthquake that occurred in the Sichuan Province of China at 0628 GMT on Monday 12 May was the most severe earthquake China has experienced in the last 30 years. More than 50,000 people are feared dead in the Sichuan Province alone. The epicentre of the earthquake was in the Wenchuan region, 95 kilometres north-west of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu with its population of 10 million people.

Hundreds of thousands in central China are sleeping outdoors for fear of more tremors after Saturday's earthquake. Foto: BBC

Like Youkun Fu, a member of the ITER Tokamak Divison, most of the Chinese ITER staff are from the Chengdu region. When Youkun heard the news about the earthquake, he immediately tried to contact his wife and relatives back in Dujingyan – without any success. Most of the telephone lines were destroyed, the mobile network had collapsed. Then, on the second day, he was relieved to receive the text message: Everybody fine!

Xiaoyu Wang, who also works in the ITER Tokamak Division, is from Jiangyou, north of Chengdu, a mere 20 kilometres away from the earthquake’s epicentre. His parent’s house has been severely damaged, he says, his parents currently live in a tent they put up in a park together with many hundred other families. The people are not yet allowed to return to their houses as aftershocks are still occurring.

While the situation in Jiangyou remains disastrous, in Chengdu itself the situation seems to stabilize day by day. “Water, gas, and electricity are working again”, another colleague from China, Caipin Zhou, reports. “After having spent the last three days in her car outside the city limits, my wife yesterday dared to return to our apartment.”

While the tokamak in the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) was not damaged, as Dr. Pengyuan Li, a visiting scientist from SWIP currently working for ITER in Cadarache, confirmed, the news about the Dongfang Turbine Factory in Deyong 90 kilometres northeast of Chengdu came as a shock to the Chinese group gathered in Youkun Fu’s office this morning. The company, one of the major cooporation partners of the ITER project in SWIP and a potential manufacturer for the ITER magnet supports and blanket, was almost completely destroyed by the earthquake - and with it the company’s school. Almost all children inside the building are reported to be dead, Youkun Fu said.

In order to support the victims, the Chinese staff together with some colleagues from Japan and Korea spontaneously collected money which they handed over to the Consulate-General of China in Marseille last week. On behalf of the ITER Organization, ITER Director General Kaname Ikeda sent a letter to Dr. Wan Gang,
the Minister of Science and Technology of China and to Professor Pan Chuanhong, President of SWIP, expressing his condolences: Ï am deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of life and the scale of the devastation caused by the earthquake. Mere words cannot express our feelings in the face of such suffering. But on behalf of myself", and the ITER Organization, we would like to offer our heartfelt sympathy and codolences to all the victims of this terrible tragedy.

Anyone who wants to help and make a donation should contact the Chinese Consul General in Marseille:

Consul General: Song Binglin,
20, boulevard Carmagnole,
13008 Marseille, France
Tel:+33-491320017 (24 hours)  or  +33-491320000
Fax:+33-491320008 / 491320004
E-mail: chinaconsul_mar_fr@mfa.gov.cn

On Site

The ITER training site

At an unrelenting pace they come and go, more than 10 giant scrapers who take the rubble from the highest point of the site and use it to fill up the lowest spots.  Their drivers, who are between 20 and 25 years old, now perfectly control every single manoeuvre. 

They have all had a two-month specific training according to the machine they operate (dumper trucks, compactors, sprinkler lorries).  This training was given on site by instructors from Valerian, the company in charge of these machines, and also by outside instructors.  “The training begins with basic information on security and how to operate the equipment (about 80 hours) and then progressively every driver gets to practise handling these huge machines which weigh several tens of tons and are more than 4 meters high”, explains one of the instructors. 

Once they have obtained their certificate of competence, they can start moving around the 2,3 million cubic meters of rubble on site, almost the equivalent of the pyramid of Kheops, estimated at more than 2,5 million cubic meters.

--- Iris Rona, Photos: Agence ITER France

Fusion World

EAST instals actively-cooled
Plasma-facing Components

EAST has recently finished the installation of actively-cooled Plasma Facing Components (PFCs). The PFCs consist of upper and lower divertors, high and low field side plates, and passive plates, made of B-Si-Ti-doped graphite tiles bolted to actively-cooled CuCrZr heat sinks. Altogether more than 8500 tiles, 270 heat sinks and 300 supports over 50,000 pieces have been used and it is expected that the divertor could withstand heat loads of maximum 2MW/m2. New electromagnetic coils for better plasma measurements and control, and a circular inner cryopump, directly mounted under the lower divertor, were also installed.

The EAST vacuum vessel is scheduled to be closed before the end of May, then pumped, leak-checked and cooled down in the following weeks. Operation will begin around late of June and will last one month.

Director's Corner

Design Office to be expanded

Yong-Hwan Kim, ITER Deputy Director General. The Design Office (DO), part of the Central Engineering and Plant Support Department, is the service provider to the entire ITER project responsible for the required CAD resources, software, processes and methodologies in mechanical & plant design and configuration control. Currently the Design Office does not have enough CAD designers and engineering designers to complete the huge workload necessary to complete all the outstanding Procurement Arrangements (PA).

In order to implement the conclusions of the 2006-2007 Design Review as well as to prepare the upcoming 25 PAs in 2008, significant design and engineering efforts will be undertaken in the Domestics Agencies from mid 2008 onwards. The  ITER Organization has asked the DAs to undertake CAD and engineering work (190 PPY in total, CAD 80 PPY, ENG 110 PPY) over the next 12 months. The tasks will be credited by the ITER Organization. Favourable responses have already been given by several DAs. The Responsible Officers will have discussions with the Domestic Agencies and will prepare the necessary Design Work Orders to initiate the joint design work.

In this context, the Design Office is to be expanded to control and coordinate this effort in close collaboration with the Agencies and the Responsible Officers. The CAD and Design Engineering Activities will be coordinated by the ITER Organization Design Officeto enable efficiency, flexibility, integration and reactivity to changes. Priority will be given to activities associated with the Procurement Arrangements to be delivered this year.

Yong-Hwan Kim is ITER Deputy Director General, Department for Central Engineering and Plant Support

Announcements

Deuterium Retention in Plasma Facing Materials

Recent experimental results on the deuterium retention in carbon fibre composites and tungsten materials irradiated with D ions and exposed to high-flux D plasmas will be presented in a talk given by Dr. Vladimir Alimov on 5 June, at 11h, Building 519, Room 019.

Les Chateaux de la Loire

The Welcome Seminar this week introduces the castles along the river Loire. Anyone interested can join the class on Friday, 23 May, starting at 11.00 in room 104, building 521.

Conferences

26-30 May
18th International Conference on Plasma Surface Interactions in Controlled Fusion Devices
Toledo, Spain
PSI-18 - Plasma Surface Interactions in Controlled Fusion Devices

9-13 June
35th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics
Hersonissos (Crete), Greece
35th European Physical Society Conference on Plamsa Physics

16-19 June
35th IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS2008)
Karlsruhe, Germany
E-mail: manfred.thummihm.fzk.ge

16 - 19 June 2008
Plasma Physics and Technology, 23rd Symposium
Prague, Czech Republic
Plasma Physics and Technology, 23rd Symposium

7 - 18 July 2008
45th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School
Culham Science Centre, UK
45th Culham Plasma Physics Summer School

22 -25 July 2008
2nd ITER Summer School
Kyushu University, Japan
2nd ITER Summer School

1 - 4 September 2008
13th EU-US TTF Workshop
Copenhagen, Denmark
13th EU-US TTF Workshop

8 - 12 September
International Congress on Plasma Physics
Fukuoka, Japan
ICPP 2008 - Intl Congress on Plasma Physics

15 - 19 September
Twenty-Fifth Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2008)
Rostock, Germany
SOFT-2008

13 - 18 October
22nd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference
50th Anniversary of Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research
Geneva, Switzerland
22nd IAEA Fusion Conference

28 September - 2 October
ANS Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE2008)
TOFE 2008

Newsline Editor

The ITER Newsline is produced by Sabina Griffith. Suggestions for future articles, comments and corrections, as well as items for the calendar are welcome, and can be sent to sabina.griffith@iter.org.