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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Tokamak assembly | Extra support from below

    Underneath the concrete slab that supports the Tokamak Complex is a vast, dimly lit space whose only features are squat, pillar-like structures called 'plinths. [...]

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  • Vacuum standards and quality | Spreading the word

    As part of a continuing commitment to improve quality culture both at the ITER Organization and at the Domestic Agencies, the Vacuum Delivery & Installation [...]

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  • 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 [...]

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  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    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 [...]

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  • Data archiving | Operating in quasi real time

    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 [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

The 3:30 a.m. procession



The scene is now familiar. It is a few hours before sunrise and a long procession of motorcycles, trucks and trailers slowly progresses towards the ITER gates. Everything is bathed is multi-coloured light ─ the pulsating blue of the Gendarmerie vans and motorcycles, the gyrating orange of the technical vehicles, and the blinding white of the headlights...

Familiar, but never routine. Every transport convoy—every "Highly Exceptional Load"—is an event in itself. After all, 300-ton loads (twice the weight of an Airbus A300) are not that frequent on the roads of Provence.

On Friday 10 June, at 3:30 a.m., the first of a series of three transformers arrived for ITER's pulsed power electrical network (PPEN)—the network that will feed power to the heating and control systems during plasma pulses.

Procured by the Chinese Domestic Agency, the three units are massive structures that will weigh approximately 460 tonnes each when completely filled with insulating oil and fitted out with the proper "bushings."


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