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News & Media
Latest ITER Newsline
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Summer postcards from the ITER worksite
The latest harvest of ITER construction photos may be taken from the same point—the tallest crane on site—but there is always an abundance of new detail to be g [...]
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The ring fortress
ITER'ssteel-and-concretebioshield has become the definingfeature of Tokamak Complex construction. Twolevels only remain to be poured (out of six). It is a 'rin [...]
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The wave factory
A year ago, work was just beginning on the steel reinforcement for the building's foundation slab. The Radio Frequency Heating Building is now nearing the last [...]
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It's all happening inside
Since the giant poster was added to the Assembly Hall's completed exterior in June 2016 the building has lookedfrom afar like a finished project. Butinside, tea [...]
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Along skid row
They look like perfectly aligned emergency housing units. But of course they're not: the 18 concrete structures in the ITER cryoplant are massive pads that will [...]
ITER NEWSLINE -
And now the "finishing" touch
The main elements of the 1,500-tonne double overhead bridge crane—four girders and their corresponding trolleys—are now in place in the Assembly Hall. The big red crawler crane has been dismantled and is on its way to Sweden, where a 330-tonne "sphere" for liquid gas storage is waiting for a lift.
By late September or early October, the two auxiliary cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 50 metric tonnes, will be delivered and installed. This time, there will be no need for a monster crawler crane operating from outside the building ...
Preliminary testing and commissioning are scheduled to begin in January/February 2017 for the large crane, and a few months later for the smaller one.
Makes you feel small ...
The person standing on the support rails looks positively tiny next to the mammoth 47-metre-long steel girder!
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All in place
All four girders are now in place. At the end of another workday the remaining trolleys will be installed on the south bridge as they already are on the north.
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Three up, one to go
The 186-ton steel girder is raised surprisingly quickly. Workers on the basemat and in the rafters work in sync to guide the component onto the waiting tracks.
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A balancing act
Before being lifted, the load must be carefully balanced on the hook. This operation takes much longer than the actual lifting.
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Forklift comes in handy
Steel cables as thick as a man's thigh are needed to lift the 186-tonne load. The sheer weight of the cables means that the power of a forklift is required to attach them to the beam.
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