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

  • 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

  • Repairs | Setting the stage for a critical task

    Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | There is life on Planet ITER

    Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]

    Read more

  • Deputy Director-General | Luo Delong, Corporate

    Many years later, when the Ministry of Science and Technology assigned him to the ITER Project, Luo Delong was to remember the day when, as a young boy, he read [...]

    Read more

  • Visit | Japanese MEXT Minister tours the installation

    In Japan, a MEXT Minister has a lot on his or her plate: the extensive Ministry is a huge administrative machine whose purview includes education, culture, [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

Neighbours

In goes the antenna

Just a short distance from the ITER site, the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM) is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility which, once transformed, will become a test platform open to all ITER partners—the WEST project (acronym derived from W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak.)

Following hydraulic and electrical tests in the Titan facility, the three-tonne high frequency antenna was installed on 7 September. (Click to view larger version...)
Following hydraulic and electrical tests in the Titan facility, the three-tonne high frequency antenna was installed on 7 September.
This summer, WEST's high frequency antenna spent one month in Titan's punishing environment—the last and most severe of its trials before being integrated into the refurbished CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra.

The component is one of three identical antennas that will deposit an ITER-relevant heat load of 10 MW per square metre on WEST's tungsten divertor.

Titan (Testbed for ITer ANtenna) is a 17.5-cubic-metre vacuum vessel that can be heated to temperatures up to 250 °C. It is equipped with a water loop capable of providing pressurized water (44 bars, also at 250 °C) and can be connected to a high power radiofrequency generator for electrical tests.

Looking strangely like a giant squid, the antenna is positioned in front of its dedicated 60 x 80 cm port. (Click to view larger version...)
Looking strangely like a giant squid, the antenna is positioned in front of its dedicated 60 x 80 cm port.
In the high-vacuum atmosphere of Titan, the 4.5-metre-long, 3-tonne component was submitted to three temperature cycles in order to induce dilatations and reveal possible leaks in its high pressure cooling circuit and vacuum volumes.

The antenna's capacity to withstand high voltage was also tested and the parameters for its optimal performance determined.

All tests were completed successfully and on 7 September, the spectacular and delicate operation of inserting the component into its port was performed.

One man inside the machine, another outside; a bit of pushing a bit of pulling and the antenna is in. (Click to view larger version...)
One man inside the machine, another outside; a bit of pushing a bit of pulling and the antenna is in.
Carefully balanced with lead counterweights, the antenna—looking strangely like a giant squid—was lifted by crane, pulled by ropes and guided by hand all the way into its dedicated port in WEST. (The port measures approximately 60 x 80 centimetres and is about four times smaller than ITER's average port).

By October, when all the ancillary systems are installed (cabling, hydraulic positioning devices, heat insulators, diagnostics ...) the antenna will be ready to face another punishing environment—the actual plasmas of an ITER-like tokamak.



return to the latest published articles