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

  • 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. [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

  • 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 [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Crane versus barge: a tale of Russian ingenuity

Re-christened ИТЭР 2016, or ITER 2016, a humble barge has become part of the engineering sophistication that is the ITER Project. (Click to view larger version...)
Re-christened ИТЭР 2016, or ITER 2016, a humble barge has become part of the engineering sophistication that is the ITER Project.
The Srednenevsky facility layout is favourable to manufacturing ultra-large components for later shipment. Situated on the Neva River near St Petersburg, the shipyard enjoys direct access to the Baltic Sea and global shipping routes.

Still, when manufacturing a component as large as ITER's poloidal field coil #1 (PF1)—200-tonnes when completed—there remains a not-insignificant engineering challenge: how to transfer this massive component from the construction hall to the transport ship. An obvious solution—but highly expensive—would be to construct a giant crane for this purpose.

The Srednenevsky team came up with a more creative strategy. Most of the multi-stage assembly platform for the PF1 coil fabrication process has been erected atop a stationary barge. This includes the vacuum pressure impregnation of each of the "double pancake" sections with epoxy resin, as well as the assembly of the double pancakes into the finished coil.

When the PF1 coil is complete, it will be lowered to a 45-degree angle for stability. The barge will then be tugged backward out of the construction hall and into the Neva River. There the coil and its platform will be transferred to a ship to begin their long journey "homeward."

Thus a humble barge—aptly re-christened ИТЭР 2016, or ITER 2016—has become part of the engineering sophistication that is the ITER Project.

return to the latest published articles