A "Little India" on the ITER worksite
22 Apr 2013
The pre-assembly operations of the ITER cryostat will take place in a temporary workshop located on the northeast corner of the ITER worksite, slightly set back from the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility.
Beginning in December 2015, the first of the ITER cryostat's components will arrive on site. A part of India's in-kind contribution to the project, these 54 segments are among the largest and heaviest of the entire tokamak assembly. They will have to be pre-assembled into four sections before being transported to the Assembly Building.
The pre-assembly operations will take place in a dedicated temporary workshop located on the northeast corner of the ITER worksite, slightly set back from the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility. The workshop will be built and operated by the Indian Domestic Agency.
As stipulated in the agreement that the ITER Organization and the Indian Domestic Agency signed last Friday 19 April, this small "territory," the size of a football field (50 x 120 m), will be made available to the Indian Domestic Agency. Acting as building owner on this portion of the ITER worksite, the Indian Domestic Agency will observe French labour laws and regulations.
ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima and Head of the Indian Domestic Agency Shishir Dishpande signed the agreement last Friday. Also present (from left to right): ITER Legal Adviser Laetitia Grammatico, and Ujjwal Baruah and Indranil Bandyopadhyay from ITER India.
Over the past two years and in addition to the preparation of the agreement, the ITER Building Site and Infrastructure Directorate, supported by Legal Affairs, prepared the administrative files pertaining to the environmental authorizations and building permit necessary for the construction and operation of the temporary workshop.
Work on the steel-framed workshop should begin in the coming weeks and last for 18 months. Once the building is completed, Larsen and Toubro Ltd, the Indian company that was awarded the contract for the fabrication and assembly of the ITER Cryostat in August 2012, will have some 50 people on site, and many more, locally subcontracted, once the actual assembly work begins.