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Latest ITER Newsline
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Lower cylinder | A transfer that felt like art
Art has little to do with the transfer of a giant component. On Monday however, as ITER was preparing to celebrate Leonardo da Vinci's 500th anniversary, scienc [...]
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Event | ITER in Da Vinci mode
'The most noble pleasure is the joy of understanding.' Written more than 500 years ago in the private journal of Leonardo da Vinci, these words still felt timel [...]
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Image of the week | When the Pit inspires an artist
On a Sunday morning, when all is silent and still on the ITER platform, an eerie dimension is added to the Tokamak Pit. Hidden eyes seem to peer through the [...]
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Leonardo and innovation | In the steps of a giant
To the members of a panel on innovation and Italian leadership, the moderator had one question: how do you see Leonardo da Vinci's scientific method—a systemati [...]
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Image of the week | Sandblasting
Whether at home or in a nuclear installation, a painting job begins with surface preparation. In the ITER Tokamak Pit, close to 3,000 square metres of wall need [...]
ITER NEWSLINE -
And now, it's for keeps!
At first view, nothing distinguishes the current operations in the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility from those that got underway last November: steel-jacketed conductor is being unspooled, straightened, cleaned, bent to the correct angle, and wrapped with layers of insulating tape ... technicians in white lab coats are carefully performing dimensional checks ... and there is the same machine hum and flash of orange lights.
The real thing—production winding—has started for poloidal field coil #5. In this on-site facility at ITER, Europe will produce the four largest poloidal field coils.
The difference lies in the heart of the steel-jacketed component. In the dummy conductor, the strands were one hundred percent copper. This less-expensive material—which respected the actual dimensions of the true conductor—was a good choice for qualifying the production line; contractors used it to first produce a semi-winding (four turns) and then a full two-layer dummy double pancake.
In the actual conductor, the strands consist of a mix of copper and of the superconducting alloy niobium-titanium. Four poloidal field coils (out of the six needed for the machine), will be manufactured by Europe in the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility. With diameters of 17 to 24 metres and weights ranging from 200 to 400 tonnes, these impressive components will require approximately 18 months each to manufacture.
Two smaller ring coils, with diameters of approximately 8 metres, are in production now in Russia and China.
See a recent report from the European Domestic Agency on fabrication activities for poloidal field coils #5 and #6 here.
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