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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Fusion world | Innovative approaches and how ITER can help

    More than 30 private fusion companies from around the world attended ITER's inaugural Private Sector Fusion Workshop in May 2024. Four of them participated in a [...]

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  • Robert Aymar (1936-2024) | A vision turned into reality

    Robert Aymar, who played a key role in the development of fusion research in France and worldwide, and who headed the ITER project for 10 years (1993-2003) befo [...]

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  • The ITER community | United in a common goal

    Gathered on the ITER platform for a group photo (the first one since 2019, in pre-Covid times) the crowd looks impressive. Although several hundred strong, it r [...]

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  • Vacuum vessel | Europe completes first of five sectors

    The ITER assembly teams are gearing up to receive a 440-tonne machine component shipped from Italy—sector #5, the first of five vacuum vessel sectors expected f [...]

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  • SOFT 2024 | Dublin conference highlights progress and outstanding challenges

    Nestled in the residential suburb of Glasnevin, Dublin City University is a fairly young academic institution. When it opened its doors in 1980 it had just 200 [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Evacuate and dissipate

If ITER were an industrial fusion plant, the better part of the heat generated by the burning plasmas would be used to produce pressurized steam and (by way of turbines and generators) electricity. Only residual heat would need to be dissipated.

Work is ongoing on one of the ''final links'' of the cooling water system: a vast (6,000 m²) zone that accommodates two large basins and a cooling tower installation made of 10 independent cells. Fabrication of the cooling tower elements has begun in India. (Click to view larger version...)
Work is ongoing on one of the ''final links'' of the cooling water system: a vast (6,000 m²) zone that accommodates two large basins and a cooling tower installation made of 10 independent cells. Fabrication of the cooling tower elements has begun in India.
But as an experimental installation, not designed to produce electricity, ITER will need to evacuate and dissipate all the power the fusion reaction generates.

And this means a lot. During the plasma burn phase, the amount of heat to be evacuated from the Tokamak and its auxiliary systems will be in the range of 1100 MW.

The complex system of piping, pumps, open and closed loops that form the ITER cooling water system ends up here, in a 6,000 m² area that accommodates cold and hot basins with a total volume of 20,000 m³ as well as an induced-draft cooling tower installation located above the cold basin.

Seen from above, the cooling water zone at the northeast end of the ITER site. (Click to view larger version...)
Seen from above, the cooling water zone at the northeast end of the ITER site.
These supersize pipes (one metre and more in diameter) for the heat rejection system are designed for a flow rate of two cubic metres per second. (Click to view larger version...)
These supersize pipes (one metre and more in diameter) for the heat rejection system are designed for a flow rate of two cubic metres per second.

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