Another round table
25 Jul 2016
In the on-site winding facility where Europe will manufacture four of ITER's poloidal field coils, the winding tooling is now in place alongside a newly assembled "round table," which goes by the official name of "double pancake impregnation station."
Impregnation is the second phase of fabrication, which intervenes after winding. The flat, coiled double pancakes are impregnated with epoxy resin in order to provide rigidity and electrical insulation, an operation performed under vacuum and high temperature.
While the installation of the new station is finalized, the winding of a double pancake "pre-dummy" is underway next door in the clean area. The operation, which aims to qualify equipment and processes, will be followed by the manufacturing of an actual real-size dummy for poloidal field coil #5 (17 metres in diameter).