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

  • ITER Design Handbook | Preserving the vital legacy of ITER

    The contributions that ITER is making to fusion physics and engineering—through decades of decisions and implementation—are delivering insights to the fusion co [...]

    Read more

  • Electron cyclotron heating | Aligning technology and physics

    ITER, like other fusion devices, will rely on a mix of external heating technologies to bring the plasma to the temperature necessary for fusion. At a five-day [...]

    Read more

  • Poloidal field magnets | The last ring

    As the massive ring-shaped coil inched its way from the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility, where it was manufactured, to the storage facility nearby where i [...]

    Read more

  • Heat rejection | White "smoke" brings good news

    Like a plume of white smoke rising from a cardinals' conclave to announce the election of a new pope, the tenuous vapour coming from one of the ITER cooling cel [...]

    Read more

  • WEC 2024 | Energy on centre stage

    The global players in the energy sector convened in Rotterdam last week for the 26th edition of the World Energy Congress (WEC). The venue was well chosen, wit [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

70 tonnes of switching network components from Russia

Direct current aluminium busbars are prepared for shipment at the Efremov Institute, in Russia. Over five kilometres—or 500 tonnes of material--will be needed to connect ITER's superconducting magnets to their power supplies. (Click to view larger version...)
Direct current aluminium busbars are prepared for shipment at the Efremov Institute, in Russia. Over five kilometres—or 500 tonnes of material--will be needed to connect ITER's superconducting magnets to their power supplies.
Seventy tonnes of equipment has been shipped from Russia for ITER's switching network and fast discharge units.

The shipment, which left Saint Petersburg on 5 December for a first stop in Kiel, Germany, includes direct current aluminium busbars for the poloidal field coils, correction coils and central solenoid; busbar thermal expansion absorbers; and other DC busbar components. Busbars—the components that connect the superconducting magnets with their power supply—are capable of carrying 70kA of current.

The switching networks for ITER's coil power supplies will trigger the pulses in the circuits of the central solenoid and poloidal field coil numbers 1 and 6 for the initiation of the plasma. The fast discharge units are used to protect the superconducting coils in case of a quench (a sudden loss of superconductivity). All components for these systems are under development at the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in St. Petersburg, which has world-recognized expertise in this area.

The fabrication and supply of switching equipment, busbars and energy absorbing resistors for power supply and protection of the superconducting magnetic system is the most expensive—and one of the most complicated—of the 25 systems falling within the scope of Russia's procurement responsibility. According to the terms of the Procurement Arrangement signed in 2011, the Efremov Institute will manufacture and deliver approximately 5.4 km of busbars with a total weight exceeding 500 tonnes.

The shipment that is on the way will be the second delivery of switching network equipment to ITER from Russia.

return to the latest published articles