ITER NEWSLINE
-
Gas injection system
Last manifolds completed in China
ITER China
Gas injection system | Last manifolds completed in China
Contractors to the Chinese Domestic Agency have completed an important part of the gas injection system—the distribution manifolds that carry gas species from the tritium plant to the ITER machine and back for processing.
Members of ITER's Fuelling & Wall Conditioning Section inspect a batch of gas injection manifolds from China in June 2020. Manufacturing is now complete and the last batches will be shipped from China.
Think of them as service pipes, with important added characteristics to meet ITER's strict regulations for protection-important components*.
Inside of a large guard pipe, six process lines for gas going toward the plasma surround a central evacuation pipe that transports exhaust gases back to the tritium plant. In the interspace is an inert gas (nitrogen) flowing toward tritium plant, where any leaks from the process pipes can be detected.
The 200-metre-long manifold distribution system provides different gas species—including helium, deuterium, tritium, nitrogen, argon and neon—to the pellet injection, gas fuelling, neutral beam and disruption mitigation systems of the ITER machine. Design and manufacturing activities have been underway in China since the 2012 signature of the Gas Injection Procurement Arrangement. The last batch of components will ship soon from Huizhou, Guangdong Province.
A ceremony organized on 10 April 2021 by manufacturer CNI23 (China Nuclear Industry Construction 23 Co., Ltd.), was attended by representatives of ITER China, the Institute of Plasma Physics (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and the Southwestern Institute of Physics. The head of the Engineering Domain at ITER, Alain Bécoulet, sent a video message.
See the news on the ITER China website in English and Chinese.
*As a nuclear facility, ITER has categorized the components that keep the facility in a safe state and prevent or mitigate nuclear risks to humans and the environment as Protection-Important Components (PIC).
return to the latest published articles
