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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Image of the week | More cladding and a new message

    As the October sun sets on the ITER worksite, the cladding of the neutral beam power buildings takes on a golden hue. One after the other, each of the scientifi [...]

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  • Cryodistribution | Cold boxes 20 years in the making

    Twenty years—that is how long it took to design, manufacture and deliver the cold valve boxes that regulate the flow of cryogens to the tokamak's vacuum system. [...]

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  • Open Doors Day | Face to face with ITER immensity

    In October 2011, when ITER organized its first 'Open Doors Day,' there was little to show and much to leave to the public's imagination: the Poloidal Field [...]

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  • Fusion | Turning neutrons into electricity

    How will the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions be converted into electricity? That is not a question that ITER has been designed to answer explicitly, [...]

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  • Fusion world | JET completes a storied 40-year run

    In its final deuterium-tritium experimental campaign, Europe's JET tokamak device demonstrated plasma scenarios that are expected on ITER and future fusion powe [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Back to the underground cathedral

In the last issue of Newsline we shared a picture of the Tokamak's subterranean world, showing the cavernous space that exists between the lower basement slab (B2) and the next-level slab (B1) of the Tokamak Complex.

"What is today a vast open space around the Tokamak assembly arena," the article said, "will one day be occupied by the dense piping of the cooling water system primary circuit."



Click on the image above to watch the animation.

Miikka Kotamaki of the ITER Design Integration Division has created a GIF image that brings home the reality of those words, by showing how the space will progressively fill up with pipes, cables, feeders and busbars.

The sequence is as follows: first the piping for building services such as compressed air, demineralized water, liquid and gaseous nitrogen, helium, fire protection, and drainage is set into place (in blue); followed by cable trays (light grey), cryolines (deep blue), and cooling water lines (not visible as they are located behind and above the camera's viewpoint).

Next come additional cable trays (light grey), massive magnet feeders and feeder boxes (yellow) and busbars (gold). Other ancillary equipment such as fast discharge units is introduced and connected to the feeder boxes.

The last step in transforming the subterranean cathedral into a forest of piping and equipment is the installation of vacuum pipes and pumps and their connection to the feeder boxes (light blue).

German photographer Christian Luenig experimented with a different approach—a black and white rendition reminiscent of drypoint drawings. (Christian Lünig/VG Bild und Kunst) (Click to view larger version...)
German photographer Christian Luenig experimented with a different approach—a black and white rendition reminiscent of drypoint drawings. (Christian Lünig/VG Bild und Kunst)
While Miikka was busy creating his animation, a German artist—photographer Christian Luenig, whose work on ITER we presented in June 2015—was experimenting with a different approach: the drypoint drawing, which perfectly expresses the mineral atmosphere of ITER's underground cathedral.

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