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

ITER NEWSLINE -

Machine assembly

Stay tuned for a remarkable lift

Inside the ITER assembly theatre, a major lift event is imminent. This 3D animation takes us through the steps that will be necessary to transport the first 1,200-tonne section of the vacuum vessel into the Tokamak pit.

Click to view the video...


Vacuum vessel sector #6 will always have a special place in the ITER story. Of the nine sectors that will form the torus-shaped plasma chamber, it was the first to be received (in August 2020), the first to get fitted with instrumentation, the first to be upended to vertical, and the first to be docked in a standing sector sub-assembly tool.

The 440-tonne double-walled steel sector manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industries and supplied by the Korean Domestic Agency for ITER spent just about one year in vertical tooling, as elements were added to create the first complete "sub-assembly" of the vacuum vessel. A complete set of vacuum vessel thermal shielding plus two toroidal field magnet coils were positioned with the highest degree of accuracy and adjusted with precision by the actuators of the tool.

Lessons learned with these first-of-a-kind operations have already facilitated work on subsequent sectors.

Now, the ITER Organization construction teams, including the TAC-2 assembly contractor DYNAMIC, are preparing for the crowning event in the sequence—the transfer by overhead crane of the 1,250-tonne, 40° section from tooling into the Tokamak assembly pit.

The final preparatory rigging activities are underway.

Because the 40° section must be lifted over the rim of the bioshield on its way to the pit—and because the large mass to be lifted necessitates the use of a rigging attachment called the "dual crane heavy lifting beam" that adds to the height of the ensemble—the lift will be one of the tallest assemblies to be handled by the overhead crane system.

In the 3D animation above, you can see how the different rigging elements combine to carry out the necessary steps, from extraction from the tool, to rotation, transfer, and descent.

-          The dual crane heavy lifting beam (in yellow) allows the cranes to work in tandem and facilitates the rotation of the sub-assembly from its tooling orientation to the orientation required for installation in the pit.

-          The sector lifting tool (in grey, directly underneath) connects directly to the beam supporting the sub-assembly, and has a balancing control system to precisely position the load's centre of gravity.

-          The radial beam that supports the assembly directly, and which played a role in docking the vacuum vessel sector in tooling, is designed to continue to support the sub-assembly during in-pit sector-to-sector welding by bracing itself between the tall centre column in the pit and brackets on the surrounding wall.

This long-planned operation is imminent. At the centre of the first-completed sub-assembly of the ITER vacuum vessel, sector #6 will once again be a trailblazer.

The animation is also on the ITER Organization's YouTube page (courtesy of Brigantium Engineering).

return to the latest published articles