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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Fusion world | Public/private consortium is building the DTT tokamak

    The Divertor Test Tokamak in Italy is creating a new model for engagement with industry in fusion research. ITER helped to pave the way. The Divertor Test Tokam [...]

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  • Image of the week | An architectural paradox

    There is something deliberately paradoxical in the architectural treatment of the ITER buildings. On the one hand, the alternation between the mirror-like stai [...]

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  • Former French Prime Minister | A fan then and now

    For Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Prime Minister of France (2002-2005) who visited ITER on Friday 15 March, touring the ITER installation with ITER Director-Gene [...]

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  • CARE at ITER | New project values launched

    Collaboration, Accountability, Respect and Excellence drive the future of fusion for a diverse staff. When Pietro Barabaschi joined as ITER Director-General to [...]

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  • Blanket | Midway through shield block procurement

    It all begins with a forged stainless-steel block weighing nine tonnes. As machining and deep-drilling operations commence, the rectangular block progressively [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

Roll them, turn them, bolt them: ITER assembly in high definition

The arrival of the first components on the ITER site will be the starter pistol for one of the most complex stage shows ever performed: the assembly of the ITER machine. In a first video back in 2011—The world's largest puzzle—we explained the challenging task of assembling the cryostat.

In a new video titled Roll them, turn them, bolt them, the job is taken one step further as we look at the installation of ITER's in-vessel components such as the in-vessel coils, the blanket system and the divertor. None of these are easy tasks and a set of custom-made tools, platforms and cranes will be needed to transfer the bulky components from the Assembly Building, through port cells and into their final positions.

 (Click to view larger version...)
The production of this eight-minute animation was certainly not as challenging as the assembly of the world's largest fusion device, yet it was no small matter. Some 31,688 individual objects had to be managed per scene requiring the experienced hands of four graphic artists and animation specialists from the German-based company Motion-e-Motion. Their job was to sort out vast CATIA data sets describing the ITER machine, to reduce them, and then to "map, shade and rig" (in video terms). Eight computers with powerful Intel i7 processors took on the job, sweating for 168 long hours to render the data into a high-definition movie.



Click here to view the video...



Many more videos are available on the ITER video page...

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