Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

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.

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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

Bolting a symbolic piece of steel

It's a small piece of steel: 30 centimetres long, 10 centimetres wide and 3 centimetres thick, a support plate that, together with several others, will hold the ring-shaped supporting structure for the high-field protection panels of the Tore Supra vacuum vessel.

''Workers'' of choice for the symbolic bolting of WEST's first component: left to right, Alain Bécoulet, director of CEA's Magnetic Fusion Research Institute (IRFM); Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physical Sciences Division; Jérôme Bucalossi, head of the WEST project; and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization. © Christophe Roux - IRFM (Click to view larger version...)
''Workers'' of choice for the symbolic bolting of WEST's first component: left to right, Alain Bécoulet, director of CEA's Magnetic Fusion Research Institute (IRFM); Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physical Sciences Division; Jérôme Bucalossi, head of the WEST project; and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization. © Christophe Roux - IRFM
However small and unassuming, the piece of steel was invested with strong symbolic value on Monday 6 October as it became the first component to be integrated as part of the WEST project—a program of radical transformation that will turn the 30-year-old CEA-Euratom tokamak into a test bench for one of the most critical ITER components, the divertor.

A program of radical transformation is turning the 30-year-old CEA-Euratom tokamak into a test bench for one of the most critical ITER components, the divertor. (Click to view larger version...)
A program of radical transformation is turning the 30-year-old CEA-Euratom tokamak into a test bench for one of the most critical ITER components, the divertor.
The symbolic importance was emphasized by the choice of "workers" for the bolting job: Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physical Sciences Division; Alain Bécoulet, director of CEA's Magnetic Fusion Research Institute (IRFM); Jérôme Bucalossi, head of the WEST project and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization.

 "Our objective is to have the platform ready in early 2016, explains IRFM Deputy-Director André Grosman, and to launch experiments immediately after. Today, we laid the first stone; next year we'll install the internal coils that will act like ITER's bottom Poloidal Field Coil and create the "X Point" that draws the plasma to the divertor."

Click here to view a video animation of WEST's first component installation.


return to the latest published articles