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.
Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?
A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]
More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]
To accommodate the first real-time system integrated with the ITER control system, new components of the data archiving system have been deployed. Data archivi [...]
Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]
Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]
The three-trailer convoy that passed the ITER gates at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday 10 December held a strong symbolic significance for all those involved in the project.
For the first time, actual elements of a machine component were being delivered. Shaped like so many slices of pie, the three 60-degree segments belong to one of the most critical components of the machine: the ITER cryostat, the huge steel cylinder that will act as a "thermos" to maintain the ultra-cold temperature of the superconducting magnets and that will provide structural support as well as penetrations to the vacuum vessel and magnet systems.
The three-trailer convoy transporting three ''60-degree segments'' belonging to the the cryostat base section passes through the village of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, a few kilometres before the ITER site.
However large and impressive, the three 50-tonne elements delivered to ITER are but a small part of the completed component, representing only 1/25th of the mass of the cryostat (3,850 tonnes). ITER's cryostat will be the largest, and also the most complex, stainless steel high-vacuum chamber ever built.
Procured by India and manufactured at Larsen & Toubro's Hazira plant, the three segments delivered on Thursday and the three others that are expected on 17 December will form tier 1 of the cryostat base section.
However large and impressive, the three 50-tonne elements delivered to ITER are but a small part of the completed 3,850-tonne component.
Once all segments and additional parts have been delivered, unpacked and stored in the Cryostat Workshop, ITER will have achieved the first milestone validated by the ITER Council during its November meeting for the years 2016-2017 ─ one that was scheduled for the first quarter of 2016.
"We are three days early in our celebration, as the rest of the shipment is due on 17 December," said ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot at the small gathering organized on Monday 14 December in the Cryostat Workshop. "But we can already celebrate a great accomplishment, one the is the fruit of remarkably integrated work and coordinated effort and that represents the first milestone of the new proposed Baseline."
Online from halfway across the globe, Shishir P. Deshpande, head of ITER India, stressed the importance of the "professionalism and enthusiasm" of logistics provider DAHER who handled the loads all the way from India to the ITER site.
Philippe Tollini, Larsen & Toubro director for Europe and Russia, noted an interesting coincidence: "As if on cue, the cryostat segments were delivered to ITER on the last day of the Conference on Climate Change in Paris. It was a way of saying ─ yes, ITER's (and fusion energy's) contribution to the future of the planet is on its way..."
In a few months ─ in March or April according to the schedule ─ tier 2 of the cryostat base will be delivered, followed by tier 1 of the lower cylinder. Heavy frames and welding equipment will be brought in the Cryostat Workshop and by the summer of 2016 welding operations will begin.
"Let us be proud of what is being accomplished here; but let us also be humble in the face of what remains to be done," said Director-General Bigot. "Beyond what we see here, beyond the steel and the highest technology, there is a project that is essential for the future of mankind. It is our pride, honour and responsibility to bring it successfully to completion."
