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News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • ITER Design Handbook | Preserving the vital legacy of ITER

    The contributions that ITER is making to fusion physics and engineering—through decades of decisions and implementation—are delivering insights to the fusion co [...]

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  • Electron cyclotron heating | Aligning technology and physics

    ITER, like other fusion devices, will rely on a mix of external heating technologies to bring the plasma to the temperature necessary for fusion. At a five-day [...]

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  • Poloidal field magnets | The last ring

    As the massive ring-shaped coil inched its way from the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility, where it was manufactured, to the storage facility nearby where i [...]

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  • Heat rejection | White "smoke" brings good news

    Like a plume of white smoke rising from a cardinals' conclave to announce the election of a new pope, the tenuous vapour coming from one of the ITER cooling cel [...]

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  • WEC 2024 | Energy on centre stage

    The global players in the energy sector convened in Rotterdam last week for the 26th edition of the World Energy Congress (WEC). The venue was well chosen, wit [...]

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Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

May 2020 - March 2021

Time-lapsing through machine assembly

On 26-27 May 2020, as the 1,250-tonne cryostat base was installed at the bottom of the assembly pit, a new and decisive chapter opened in the history of ITER.

On 31 August 2020, the cryostat lower cylinder was the second major component installed in the assembly pit. Three months earlier, the lifting of the 1,250-tonne cryostat base had inaugurated the machine assembly phase. (Click to view larger version...)
On 31 August 2020, the cryostat lower cylinder was the second major component installed in the assembly pit. Three months earlier, the lifting of the 1,250-tonne cryostat base had inaugurated the machine assembly phase.
This time-lapse video, shot from a camera positioned almost directly above the assembly pit, will take you from early May 2020, when the pit was still an empty space ringed by the cryostat support bearings, to mid-March 2021 as ITER prepares for the insertion of the first poloidal field coils in the coming weeks.

This ten-month span condensed into 1 minute and 28 seconds illustrates the variety of actions required as well as the tools and the techniques involved (note the flashes of light from the welding operations at the centre of the pit from February into March 2021) in the positioning of the cryostat lower cylinder, the lower cryostat thermal shield, the temporary supports for poloidal field coil #6 and the gravity supports for the toroidal field coils.

Click here to watch the video.

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