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

  • 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

  • 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

Of Interest

See archived entries

Neutral Beam Test Facility

High voltage component for MITICA

Creating reliable high-energy neutral beams at ITER parameters, from a negative ion source, requires such a large technological leap that the components of the neutral beam injection system are being tested in advance at the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Padua, Italy. Construction of the testbed MITICA advanced another step this month, as a critical high voltage component was installed. 

At the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Padua, Italy, a 50-tonne high voltage bushing has been installed on the MITICA vacuum vessel. The bushing acts like a feedthrough between the transmission line and the injector. (Click to view larger version...)
At the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Padua, Italy, a 50-tonne high voltage bushing has been installed on the MITICA vacuum vessel. The bushing acts like a feedthrough between the transmission line and the injector.
Neutral beam injection is one of the external heating systems on ITER that will bring the plasma to fusion temperature.
At the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility in Italy, the MITICA experiment (for Megavolt ITER Injector and Concept Advancement) is a full-scale prototype of the ITER heating neutral beam injector, with a deuterium beam of 1 MeV and 16.5 MW of power.

Europe is contributing all MITICA mechanical components (including beam sources and accelerators); the MITICA low-voltage power supply and high-voltage deck; plant auxiliaries (cooling, vacuum and gas injection systems, insulating SF6 gas handling, cryogenic plant); diagnostics; and instrumentation and control. Japan is providing high voltage components for the 1 MV power supply system of MITICA (including the megavolt bushing, the megavolt transmission line and the high voltage part of the megavolt power supply); Italy is providing the buildings, auxiliaries and power grid; and host lab Consorzio RFX lab is providing expertise through a large contribution to staffing.

On 10 June, the high voltage bushing procured by the ITER Japan in collaboration with Hitachi was installed on MITICA vacuum vessel procured by the European Domestic Agency (Fusion for Energy) in collaboration with manufacturer De Pretto Industrie SrL. 

The high voltage bushing is a highly innovative component, whose design required significant R&D. It works not only as an electric feedthrough between the transmission line and the injector, but also as an interface between two environments—the ultra-high vacuum inside the vessel and the high-pressure SF6-gas- insulated transmission line.

"So many actors have been involved in this operation, each of them with different responsibilities: Fusion for Energy and ITER Japan for procurement; the ITER Organization as the final owner of the components; the companies involved in manufacturing and installation activities; and Consorzio RFX for the integration," says Vanni Toigo, project manager of the Neutral Beam Test Facility.

All MITICA "utilities" will pass through the high voltage bushing—the voltage of 1 MV, water for cooling, and gas for the plasma—in 50 tonnes of highly concentrated technology.

See more about the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility here.


return to the latest published articles