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 -

"Dummy" winding takes shape

As orange lights flash and machines softly hum, layer one of a "dummy" pancake winding (the building block of a poloidal field coil) is taking shape on the winding table of the Poloidal Field Coils facility.

The first complete layer, made from ''dummy'' conductor, reflects the dimensions of ITER's fifth poloidal field coil. (Click to view larger version...)
The first complete layer, made from ''dummy'' conductor, reflects the dimensions of ITER's fifth poloidal field coil.
A "dummy" is similar to an actual pancake winding in every aspect except one: the conductor is made of plain copper instead of niobium-titanium superconducting alloy. Winding with dummy conductor serves to qualify tooling and processes before the start of actual production.

In the on-site facility where four of ITER's giant ring-shaped poloidal field coils will be produced by Europe, layer one of the two-layer dummy winding has been realized by a team of ten people. It corresponds to the dimensions of poloidal field coil #5 (17 metres).

As if in slow motion, the steel-jacketed conductor is unspooled, straightened, cleaned in an ultrasound bath, bent to the correct shape, and then sandblasted, washed and dried. Five layers of insulating glass/polyimide tape turn the originally grey conductor to white.

Technicians check the insulation of the dummy conductor winding. Winding is a multi-stage process that begins with de-spooling, straightening, cleaning and sandblasting ... before the conductor is wound into the correct dimensions and insulated with layers of glass/polymide tape. (Click to view larger version...)
Technicians check the insulation of the dummy conductor winding. Winding is a multi-stage process that begins with de-spooling, straightening, cleaning and sandblasting ... before the conductor is wound into the correct dimensions and insulated with layers of glass/polymide tape.
Winding layer one is now complete, soon to be joined by a second layer placed in a controlled manner on top of the first and separated by joggles. After the creation of helium inlets (ITER's magnets will be cooled by supercritical helium), the dummy pancake will continue on to the impregnation step. The final rigid assembly will be sliced into eight parts and stacked to reproduce a mockup section of poloidal field coil #5, with its  eight stacked double pancakes.

More information on the European Domestic Agency website.

return to the latest published articles