Qualification conductors reach site

The large portals to the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility were still closed on Friday afternoon, 17 January, when the two trucks with their precious cargo arrived at the ITER worksite 15 minutes ahead of time. On board were four crates shipped from the Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) in Hefei, China, containing two types of conductor for the commissioning of the Winding Facility: 894 m of copper dummy conductor in three pieces to test tooling, and an additional 100 m of niobium-titanium (NbTi) conductor for winding and joint qualification tests.

 

Following a first convoy in June 2013, this was the second delivery of qualification conductors from China to the ITER worksite. According to the Procurement Arrangement signed between the Chinese Domestic Agency and the ITER Organization, China will in total fabricate 64 conductors for ITER's poloidal field coils, including four dummy conductors for cabling and coil manufacturing process qualification. ASIPP is responsible for all the poloidal field conductor fabrication in China.