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

  • Tokamaks | Different approaches around the world

    Look east, look west ... tokamak projects are underway in different parts of the world. All of them are benefiting from and complementing the pioneering work al [...]

    Read more

  • Construction site | A guide to work underway

    Just like the ITER worksite, drone photography is also making progress. This view of the ITER platform is the sharpest and most detailed of all those we have pu [...]

    Read more

  • Vacuum vessel repair | A portfolio

    Whether standing vertically in the Assembly Hall or lying horizontally in the former Cryostat Workshop now assigned to component repair operations, the non-conf [...]

    Read more

  • European Physical Society | ITER presents its new plans

    The new ITER baseline and its associated research plan were presented last week at the 50th annual conference of the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Di [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | The platform's quasi-final appearance

    Since preparation work began in 2007 on the stretch of land that was to host the 42-hectare ITER platform, regular photographic surveys have been organized to d [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Manufacturing

Russia ships auxiliary heating equipment

The energy-generating devices of ITER's electron cyclotron heating system—gyrotrons—require a number of auxiliary systems such as water cooling equipment, cryocoolers and microwave-beam forming systems. A first batch of auxiliaries is on its way now from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

In a gyrotron, beams of electrons are accelerated toward a cavity where a strong magnetic field is applied. The interaction between the rotating (cyclotron) motion of the electrons and the magnetic field generate high-frequency radio waves that ''travel'' in a straight line into the plasma, almost like an optical beam. Around the central gyrotron unit are auxiliary systems such as water cooling equipment, cryocoolers and microwave-beam forming systems. (Click to view larger version...)
In a gyrotron, beams of electrons are accelerated toward a cavity where a strong magnetic field is applied. The interaction between the rotating (cyclotron) motion of the electrons and the magnetic field generate high-frequency radio waves that ''travel'' in a straight line into the plasma, almost like an optical beam. Around the central gyrotron unit are auxiliary systems such as water cooling equipment, cryocoolers and microwave-beam forming systems.
At ITER, two radio-wave-generating systems are designed to deliver 40 MW of input heating power to the plasma: the electron and ion cyclotron heating systems. The systems deliver energy at frequencies that match the oscillations of particles inside the plasma—a matching called "resonance." The energy increases the velocity of the particles' chaotic motion, and at the same time their temperature.

At the core of electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) is the microwave-generating gyrotron. In a gyrotron, beams of electrons are accelerated toward a cavity where a strong magnetic field is applied. The interaction between the rotating (cyclotron) motion of the electrons and the magnetic field generate high-frequency radio waves that "travel" in a straight line into the plasma, almost like an optical beam.

Russia is manufacturing 8 of the 24 gyrotrons required by ITER. Six gyrotron complexes have already been completed, of which four are required to be on site by First Plasma. The Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been engaged in the development and scientific guidance for the creation of these unique devices, while their fabrication is carried out at the GYKOM enterprise in Nizhny Novgorod. 

A first batch of auxiliary equipment was dispatched on 1 December. According to the ITER schedule, delivery of gyrotrons, power supplies, control systems, as well as the start of equipment assembly at the ITER site is planned for 2022.

return to the latest published articles