Moving along the assembly line
Sector #9 is the latest vacuum vessel sector to be lowered into sector sub-assembly tooling.
On Friday 19 June, vacuum vessel sector #9 was lowered by overhead crane into the V-shaped embrace of a sector sub-assembly tool. Approximately six months from now, it will re-emerge as sector module #9—one of the nine segments of ITER's torus-shaped vacuum vessel.
The 22-metre-tall vacuum vessel sub-assembly tools have been designed to support the sectors while thermal shield panels and two 310-tonne toroidal field coils are positioned and aligned to millimetre-level assembly tolerances. Precision hydraulics drive the tool's lateral wings; as the wings approach the suspended vacuum vessel sector, actuators on the rotating platforms allow the components to be positioned with the highest accuracy and adjusted to six degrees of freedom*.
Sector #9 is the seventh to enter the vacuum vessel assembly line since September 2024. Five completed sector modules are in the tokamak pit and a sixth will be transferred from sub-assembly tooling in July.
*Six degrees of freedom refers to adjustability along X, Y and Z axes (up and down, side to side, forward and backward) as well as in rotational directions relative to the axes (swivel, tilt, pivot).