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 -

Image of the week

In the slow cooker

The thermostat is set at 140 °C and the timer on 72 hours. But contrary to the roasting of a Thanksgiving Turkey, the "curing" of the resin inside a poloidal field coil cannot be left unattended. More like the cooking of a soufflé, the operation requires constant attention and non-stop monitoring.

The curing process, which ensures the electrical insulation and rigidity of the coil, requires constant attention. Since resin impregnation began for PF4 two weeks ago, staff from the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy and its contractors have taken shifts to cover the 24/7 monitoring of the operation. (Click to view larger version...)
The curing process, which ensures the electrical insulation and rigidity of the coil, requires constant attention. Since resin impregnation began for PF4 two weeks ago, staff from the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy and its contractors have taken shifts to cover the 24/7 monitoring of the operation.
The curing phase is the last phase of the resin impregnation process. It is particularly delicate, as it aims to ensure the electrical insulation and rigidity of a coil before it is equipped and cold tested. In the on-site winding facility, poloidal field coils PF5 and PF2, both 17 metres in diameter, went through this process before. With poloidal field coil PF4, the process will be the same, except for the size of the component in question (24 metres in diameter) and the quantity of resin (2,700 litres) that needs to be injected and cured.

In the curing process, the resin that was injected in the coil at a temperature of 50 °C is heated to 140 °C by a strong electrical current fed to the conductors (the Joule effect) and by electrical resistances positioned around the mould. Since resin impregnation began for PF4 two weeks ago, staff from the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy and its contractors have taken shifts to cover the 24/7 monitoring of the operation.

The mould that contains the impregnated PF4 will be disassembled in mid-August and the coil moved to the assembly station in early September. Following final assembly and cold test operations, the finalized coil should be transferred to the ITER Organization before mid-2023.

return to the latest published articles