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Machine assembly

ITER Organization awards two major contracts

30 Sep 2019 - K.D.
Two international consortia have been selected to carry out the thousands of complex lifting, positioning, joining, and inspection activities behind the assembly, over the next five years, of the ITER core machine.
TAC-1_SIGNATURE.jpg
The TAC1 contract was signed in Beijing, China, on 30 September. Representatives of the CNPE consortium (formed by China Nuclear Power Engineering; China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company Ltd.; Southwestern Institute of Physics; Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences ASIPP; and Framatome) are pictured next to ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot.
Following competitive global tender campaigns managed by ITER's Procurement & Contracts Division, two contracts for Tokamak machine assembly—TAC1 and TAC2—have been awarded and signed.
 
Each contract covers well-defined and distinct machine assembly scope, purposefully minimizing the interfaces between providers. (Two contracts, instead of one, were decided by the ITER Organization in the interest of preserving peer competition and protecting the project from contractor default.) Common to both contracts is the broad range of experience and skills that is demanded in order to handle, install, and align large, heavy, sensitive, and high-value components such as superconducting magnet structures to within accuracies of millimetres; to carry out the precise fit-up for weldments and mechanical connections; and to ensure 100 percent leak-tightness for all vacuum components and connections.
 
  • The TAC1 assembly contract—covering the cryostat and cryostat thermal shield; magnet feeders; the central solenoid, poloidal field and correction coil magnets; and cooling structures and instrumentation—has been awarded to the CNPE Consortium (China Nuclear Power Engineering; China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company Ltd.; Southwestern Institute of Physics; Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences ASIPP; and Framatome).
  • The TAC2 assembly contract—covering the main vessel and ports, sector sub-assembly with toroidal field coils and vacuum vessel thermal shielding, and welding—has been awarded to the DYNAMIC SNC consortium (Ansaldo Nucleare; Endel Engie; Orys Group ORTEC; SIMIC; Ansaldo Energia; and Leading Metal Mechanic Solutions SL).

The ITER Director-General, Bernard Bigot, signed the TAC1 contract today, Monday 30 September, in Beijing, China (see photo). TAC2 was signed on 29 July at ITER Headquarters by the Director-General and Francesco Maestri (CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare) from the DYNAMIC SNC consortium.

"These are major contracts for the ITER Organization," according to Bernard Bigot. "We have carefully prepared more than 1,200 engineering work packages for the mechanical installation of the ITER machine components and planned the assembly sequences; we are pleased we have found highly qualified and motivated partners for the execution of the work. We look forward to collaborating with world-renowned industry specialists for the on-time and to-specification assembly of one of the world's most challenging, promising and important scientific instruments." 

Each contract is broken into phases, with detailed works assigned progressively to the contractors through ITER Organization work packages. The execution of assembly works will take place under the day-to-day management of ITER's Construction Management-as-Agent, MOMENTUM.

An initial preparatory period, underway now, is dedicated to ensuring a common and thorough understanding of the technical and management requirements and constraints, the roles of different project actors, and the physical workspaces. The consortia are developing their on-site organization and teams, and creating detailed implementation processes and procedures.

"The competence and experience of the TAC contractors, and the ability, experience, and training of their engineering and construction teams will have a direct influence on the quality of work, the schedule, and ultimately the performance of the ITER machine," stresses Christophe Dorschner, head of the Procurement & Contracts Division. "The high quality of the interactions so far sends a strong positive signal about our expectations for performance over the coming years. Moreover, the international nature of the groups selected reflects the multinational collaboration that is at the core of the ITER Project."

Follow these links to read press releases from the CNPE (in Chinese) and DYNAMIC (in English and Italian) consortia.
 
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