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

  • Fusion world | Japan and Europe inaugurate largest tokamak in the world

    It was 6:00 a.m. in La Bergerie, a former sheep barn located a few kilometres from ITER in the vast Château de Cadarache domain, and that had been converted [...]

    Read more

  • Stakeholders | ITER Director-General meets Prime Minister Kishida

    In Japan, the prime minister lives and works at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in central Tokyo, just a few blocks from the National Diet Building and [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | Season wrapping

    Although the travel distance is short, barely exceeding one hundred metres, the transfer of vacuum vessel sector #8 from the Assembly Hall, where it is presentl [...]

    Read more

  • In memoriam | Bernard Pégourié, physicist and mountaineer

    The worldwide fusion community mourns Bernard Pégourié, of France's Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA-IRFM), who passed away on 25 November following [...]

    Read more

  • COP28 | Fusion is making a splash

    The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, opened on 30 November in Dubai's Expo City—a sprawling conference centre built two years ago for the W [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

Coil winding facility

Gantry crane passes load tests

However complex the science or sophisticated the technology at ITER, there is one simple activity that conditions future success—the ability to lift and manoeuvre exceptionally heavy loads during the project assembly phase.

A 540-tonne load, representing 125 percent of the crane's nominal lifting capacity, is attached to the beams for static tests. Dynamic operations followed at 110 percent in order to monitor the deformation of the beams. (Click to view larger version...)
A 540-tonne load, representing 125 percent of the crane's nominal lifting capacity, is attached to the beams for static tests. Dynamic operations followed at 110 percent in order to monitor the deformation of the beams.
With a nominal lifting capacity of 1,500 tonnes, the undisputed champion of ITER weightlifters is the double overhead crane in the Assembly Hall. Second on the podium is the gantry crane in the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility—a 30-metre-in-diameter steel structure supported by four hydraulic towers traveling on rails, capable of lifting the heaviest components of the ring-shaped coils throughout the last stages of fabrication.

Personnel from the European Domestic Agency and from crane manufacturer Ale Heavy Lift are overseeing the load tests. Europe is responsible for procuring 5 out of the 6 poloidal field coils required for ITER operation. (Click to view larger version...)
Personnel from the European Domestic Agency and from crane manufacturer Ale Heavy Lift are overseeing the load tests. Europe is responsible for procuring 5 out of the 6 poloidal field coils required for ITER operation.
Load tests for the gantry crane began on 16 February with static operations at 125 percent of its nominal lifting capacity of 400 tonnes. Dynamic operations followed at 110 percent in order to monitor the deformation of the beams. With a deflection of less than 119 millimetres, the tests were conclusive.

The bright red gantry crane was tested in three operational lifting configurations corresponding to poloidal field coils #2 and #5 (up to 342 tonnes, Ø 17 metres), poloidal field coils #3 and #4 (up to 385 tonnes, Ø 24 metres), and finally poloidal field coil #6 (396 tonnes, Ø 8.5 metres)¹.

¹ Poloidal field coil #6 (PF6) is being manufactured in China under a European contract but will be cold tested in the on-site poloidal field coil facility.
 
For more on the poloidal field coils click here and here.


return to the latest published articles