New ITER Boutique! Purchase ITER-branded merchandise here.

  • Jobs 9
  • Tenders 72
  • Visits
  • FAQs
  • Contact us
  • ITER directory
  • Subscribe

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

    If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

    For more information, see our Privacy policy.

    Select your newsletters:

  • Donate
FR

Where conductors are born

13 Jul 2012 - Alexander Petrov, Russian Domestic Agency
TF strands.jpg
Specialists at VNIIKP in Podolsk, Russia have produced a 760-metre niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) cable—the second product of this kind manufactured in Russia.
Manufacturing the toroidal field conductors for the ITER magnet system is a sophisticated, multistage process. Early this year, specialists at the All-Russian Cable Scientific Research and Development Institute (VNIIKP) in Podolsk, Russia twisted supraconductor strands into a 760-metre niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) cable—the second product of this kind manufactured in Russia. 
 
At the end of February, at the High Energy Physics Institute in Protvino, this cable was pulled through a stainless steel jacket that had been assembled on site. The process involved the most advanced Russian technology and knowhow. The jacket itself—reaching nearly a kilometre in length and composed of more than 70 tubes welded together by gas tungsten-arc welding technology—was exposed to triple testing of the weld seams' quality and reliability.
 
During the next stage in the process, the jacketed cable, called a conductor, was compacted and spooled into a solenoid measuring four metres in diameter. Following vacuum and hydraulic tests at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, the conductor will be shipped to Europe.
 
Follow this link to a 10-minute video in English that will bring you inside the Russian factories involved with toroidal field conductor manufacturing for ITER.
 
Click here to see the video in Russian.
Return to newsline