Last ITER vacuum vessel sector travelling
The ninth—and final—sector of the vacuum vessel arrived by boat in Marseille today and will soon be on its way to the ITER site.
Six years. From the delivery of the first vacuum vessel sector to ITER to the arrival of the ninth and final sector, six years will have gone by.
The ITER vacuum vessel certainly ranks among the most technically challenging procurements of the ITER machine. Consider its sheer scale—the largest fusion vessel ever designed—its extraordinary complexity, the exacting levels of precision and quality required, and a procurement strategy that divided responsibility for manufacturing its nine sectors between two ITER Members: Europe, with five sectors, and Korea, with four.
For the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy and its supplier, the AMW consortium (Ansaldo Nucleare, Westinghouse, and Walter Tosto), the effort has spanned 15 years and mobilized a supply chain of 15 European companies.
With the departure of vacuum vessel sector #2 from Westinghouse Electric’s Monfalcone factory in Italy on 15 September, this extraordinary industrial adventure is drawing to a close. When the sector arrives at ITER in early October, all nine sectors needed to form the heart of the ITER machine will have completed their journey to the ITER site—a major milestone for one of the project’s most complex and demanding industrial procurements.