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

  • Tokamak assembly | Extra support from below

    Underneath the concrete slab that supports the Tokamak Complex is a vast, dimly lit space whose only features are squat, pillar-like structures called 'plinths. [...]

    Read more

  • Vacuum standards and quality | Spreading the word

    As part of a continuing commitment to improve quality culture both at the ITER Organization and at the Domestic Agencies, the Vacuum Delivery & Installation [...]

    Read more

  • Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?

    A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]

    Read more

  • 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

Of Interest

See archived entries

Supporting crown

A midnight pour

It is close to midnight in the brightly lit basement of the ITER bioshield and, tonight, the first plot of the Tokamak "crown" is to be poured. The operation is of strategic importance: the crown will support the combined mass of the Tokamak and its encasing cryostat (23,000 tonnes) while transferring the forces and stresses generated during plasma operation to the ground.

There's a special magic to night-time operation on the ITER site... (Click to view larger version...)
There's a special magic to night-time operation on the ITER site...
Thousands of tonnes of concrete have already been poured into the different areas of the Tokamak Complex. But every operation is unique, due to differences in pouring techniques, concrete formulations, and even prevailing weather and temperature conditions.

Like in most challenging situations—and the pouring of the supporting crown is certainly one—the correct pouring of the different geometrical shapes of the structure was rehearsed and validated on a real-size mockup before being implemented.

It took four hours to pour approximately one hundred cubic metres of high-performance concrete into the first plot, which represents one-fourth of the total crown volume.

Another plot is scheduled to be poured in about three weeks.



return to the latest published articles