A fast-growing array of structures and buildings has been emerging across the ITER worksite platform under the control and supervision of the European Domestic Agency. But—timed to coincide with the increasing number of components being delivered by the Domestic Agencies—a second actor has been gearing up to enter into the scene: the ITER Organization, which is responsible for assembly of the plant systems in the completed buildings and the assembly of the Tokamak itself. A first step was already taken when the CMA (Construction Management-as-Agent) contract was signed with MOMENTUM at the end of June 2016. But for the full launch to occur, it remained for ITER to make the necessary internal organizational adjustments to support full implementation of the strategy for assembly and installation.   The formulation of an effective "matrixed" construction organization—implying cross-functionality and multiple reporting lines tailored to specific functions—is intimately tied to the success of the next phase of the ITER mission. The matrixed structure is designed to enable clarity and simplicity of each function across an organization and mission which, viewed as a whole, is extraordinarily complex.   Why is such an approach necessary? The complexity of the ITER machine itself (tokamak and support systems) is multiplied by the intricate integration of component manufacturing involving multiple suppliers. Many aspects of the ITER Project must therefore proceed in parallel—whereas, in a simpler project, they would proceed in easily defined, stand-alone sequences.   As a primary example, while the design of most major critical path components, structures, and systems has been finalized for ITER, small adjustments may still be needed. Yet rigorous principles of materials selection, component and system design, nuclear safety, quality control testing, quality assurance oversight, risk management, configuration control and systems engineering must be followed and rigorously managed for each system and within each sequence. Above all, thorough documentation must be maintained from design through assembly, installation, testing, and operation.   Given the first-of-kind nature of ITER, this degree of complexity exceeds that of other industrial construction projects of similar scale, such as fission-based nuclear power plants.   The new construction organization is thus designed to be both rigid and fluid: rigid in adherence to strict controls and clearly defined parameters, and fluid in its capacity to adapt its focus and expertise from one installation and assembly sequence to another, understanding that different sequences may be at different stages at any given point in time.   The matrix of oversight, coordination, and expertise will result in three new project teams that interface directly with construction contractors.   These three teams will oversee tokamak assembly, systems assembly in the Tokamak Complex, and plant installation, respectively. Each team will draw expertise from existing ITER engineering departments, the ITER Central Integration Office, the Domestic Agencies, and the Construction Management-as-Agent.   This enables taking full practical advantage of the accumulated working knowledge of component design and manufacturing that has been developed across the ITER Organization. Among other aspects, the goal is to ensure that in-field engineering support is available in real time during assembly and installation to resolve any emergent design non-conformities, design changes, and deviation requests—in order to meet project commitments while remaining on budget and on schedule.

Over a wet and windy three-day period on the ITER site in November, around 90 representatives of the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies of Europe and Japan, and industry came together for the second ITER Remote Handling Progress Review and Standardization Workshop.  Building on the success of its predecessor, held in Barcelona in 2015, this workshop provided a rare opportunity for industrialists, researchers and system integrators currently working on ITER remote handling systems to identify opportunities for collaboration and cross-fertilization between as many as six different ITER procurement packages. It also gave this rapidly growing ITER community the opportunity to compare notes and combine efforts on common technological challenges such as the cutting, welding and non-destructive testing of a multitude of ITER in-vessel cooling pipes.Participants were welcomed by the director of ITER's Plant Engineering Department, Sergio Orlandi, and the event program was managed jointly by members of ITER's remote handling team and the remote handling project team of the European Domestic Agency. During the event, the organizers outlined the current status of the ITER Project as well as important recent decisions regarding plans for assembly.  At the same time, lead suppliers were able to demonstrate their progress on five major systems already contracted, namely the remote handling systems for maintaining ITER's blanket, divertor, port plugs and neutral beams, plus the in-vessel viewing system that will help operators carry out visual inspections inside the machine. About 50 attendees of the Remote Handling Progress Review and Standardization Workshop were able to participate in an ITER site tour and see where "their" remote handling systems will be located. A major proportion of the event was dedicated to allowing a number of laboratories and small and medium-sized enterprises to showcase their latest technological developments in fields of common interest to the entire remote handling community, such as radiation-hard electronics, cameras, control systems, condition monitoring and water hydraulics. It was clear that all of these latest developments are showing great potential for some level of in-field deployment within the ITER timeframe.Finally, a vision of remote handling challenges after ITER was provided by Tony Loving of UKAEA-RACE, who leads the EUROfusion DEMO remote maintenance project team. The talk highlighted the even greater remote handling challenges that will be faced on the road to a fusion power plant, while at the same time illustrating just how important the success of the ITER remote handling program will be for the long-term future of fusion power. Thankfully, the rain stopped just long enough for 50 of the delegates to tour the ITER construction site to gain some insight, "in concrete terms," of where remote handling systems will be accommodated in the ITER buildings, from initial integration in the mid-2020s to their long-term operation right up to the end of the ITER Project. Once again this initiative to bring as many of the current ITER remote handling protagonists under one roof to meet face-to-face and share ideas was highly supported by all attendees. This was particularly true for lead suppliers, since it gave them an opportunity to seek synergies with those supplying other, similar systems and provided food for thought on new developments which, up to now, may not have featured in their developing designs.  Throughout the workshop there was the air of engineers getting down to business, rather than companies seeking business, which was exactly how the event was meant to be.

In signing the ITER Agreement in 2006, the seven ITER Members were agreeing not only to share in the costs of constructing and operating the ITER facility, but also to share any intellectual property flowing from the execution of the Agreement. Intellectual property, in the context of ITER, can be understood as the development of industrial knowhow and processes, technological solutions, inventions, and of course all experimental results.   As a basic principle, the ITER Organization and the seven Members support the widest appropriate dissemination of intellectual property generated in the course of activities for ITER. For this, provisions are included in contracts signed for ITER work that detail—among other things—the rights of access to intellectual property.   An important distinction is made between background intellectual property, which has been acquired or developed before the entry into force of the ITER Agreement, and generated intellectual property that is acquired or produced in the course of activities related to ITER; depending on the category, the access regime and obligations can be very different. Intellectual property can be generated under contract, Task Agreement or Procurement Arrangement, or by ITER Organization staff.   The legal framework for the management of ITER intellectual property is set out in the ITER Agreement (Article 10) and its Annex on Information and Intellectual Property. Further detail is provided in the Rules on Intellectual Property Management and the Dissemination of Information (adopted by the ITER Council) and by internal procedures put in place for the implementation of these Rules. According to the terms of the ITER Agreement and its related Annex (see text box), background or generated intellectual property is shared by way of license agreements or commercial arrangements. Between Members—and in the scope of publically sponsored fusion R&D—these would be non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free licenses.   One of the key project-wide management tools for intellectual property is the intellectual property database, which centralizes background declarations, generated intellectual property declarations, publications, and licenses. The database is the tool by which Domestic Agencies and contractors declare intellectual property, thereby making it available to other Domestic Agencies. Recording intellectual property data opens the way to the possibility of licensing agreements between the ITER Organization and Domestic Agencies or between the agencies themselves. As the project progresses, increasing amounts of records are expected.   Since 2009, specialists designated by each Domestic Agency have joined ITER experts annually at the Intellectual Property Contact Person Meeting to discuss the dissemination of project-related intellectual property. At the latest meeting, which took place at ITER Headquarters from 29 to 30 November, the focus was on the status of the intellectual property database, publications, and progress reports from each Member.  

A recent article in the online journal Nature Communications confirms that the complex topology of the magnetic field of Wendelstein 7-X—the world's largest stellarator—is highly accurate, with deviations from design configuration measured at fewer than 1-in-100,000. In the complex shape of a stellarator, high engineering accuracy is needed because even the smallest magnetic field errors can have a large effect on the magnetic surfaces and the confinement of the plasma. Wendelstein 7-X relies on a system of 50 non-planar and superconducting magnet coils to create a precisely shaped magnetic "cage" to confine the plasma for discharges of up to 30 minutes (projected). Following a first helium plasma in December 2015 and an initial hydrogen campaign with over 2,000 plasma pulses, the machine is now being prepared for high power operation at the Max-Planck-Institute für Plasmaphysik (IPP) in Germany. Because a carefully tailored topology of nested magnetic surfaces is necessary for optimum confinement, the study's highly sensitive measurements provide welcome proof that such a topology is feasible and verifiable with the required accuracy.Read the original article in Nature Communications.  Read another report at IPP.

They travelled by road from the Air Liquide factory near Grenoble, sailed down the Rhône River from Lyon and entered the Mediterranean to the east of Fos-sur-Mer. On Monday afternoon, the three 20-metre-long "cold boxes" for the ITER liquid helium plant were unloaded and are now safely stored in DAHER's new facility, pending transport to the ITER site.   The land journey will begin on 12 December, following the crossing of the inland sea Etang-de-Berre. The massive, 137-tonne components are expected on site in the early hours of 15 December.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER has awarded a contract to Equipos Nucleares SA (ENSA, Spain) for the supply of two holding tanks and two feeding tanks for ITER's water detritiation system. When manufactured and installed in the basement of the Tritium Plant, they will join six other tanks, also supplied by Europe, that were installed earlier in the year. The water detritiation system at ITER will remove tritium from process water during plant operation and recycle it as fuel. See the news here.

For the first time in twenty years, a tokamak will experiment with nuclear plasmas. Ian Chapman, the recently appointed UKAEA Chief Executive confirmed in a Newsline interview that "JET will be operating with tritium again in 2018, and then operating with a deuterium-tritium mix in 2019." This video takes you into the innards of the European machine, which is presently the largest in the world.