Registration is open for the Korean ITER Business Forum (IBF Korea/14), which will take place in Seoul from 1 July 2014, through 4 July 2014. At IBF Korea/14, company representatives will have access to the latest updated information on ITER procurement procedures and forthcoming calls for tenders (2014-2015), with a special focus on the procurement status of the ITER Domestic Agencies, their main suppliers, and potential opportunities for partnership, subcontracting or local support. One-to-one meetings between industrial participants will be organized to facilitate the creation of business relations between the industries involved with ITER and fusion. Highlights of the four-day event include presentations by the ITER Organization, the ITER Domestic Agencies, and principle industrial suppliers; tours of the KSTAR tokamak and the converter firm Dawonsys Co., Ltd; and social events where participants can interact with the different actors of the ITER Project. IBF Korea/14—which is the first Asian ITER Business Forum held in Korea—is organized by the Korean Domestic Agency with the participation and support of the ITER Organization and the ITER Domestic Agencies including Fusion for Energy, the European Domestic Agency. Ninety-three representatives from 53 different companies have already registered; please join them by registering for the conference and the one-to-one meetings. The IBF Korea/14 organizers hope you will take this opportunity to make business contacts with European or Asian companies in industrial areas related to the ITER Project and, more largely, your core business. 

The eleventh meeting of the ITER Council Test Blanket Module (TBM) Program Committee took place on 21-23 of May in the Council Chamber of ITER Headquarters.   The TBM Program Committee meets twice a year to review the implementation of the TBM program, including the ITER Members' Test Blanket Systems and the ITER Organization's TBM integration activities. Typical standing items at each meeting include the status of the TBM-related activities within the ITER Organization, TBM design and R&D progress within the ITER Members, and the status of corresponding milestones.   During the eleventh meeting, good progress was reported by the TBM Leaders, who hold the responsibility for specific Test Blanket Systems. Design development is progressing in view of upcoming conceptual design reviews for each system, and design activities under ITER Organization responsibility—for TBM port cell components and specific maintenance tools and equipment—are advancing.   Twice a year, the TBM Program Committee reviews TBM-related activities within the ITER Organization, TBM design and R&D progress within the ITER Members, and the status of corresponding milestones. The first component delivery associated with the TBM Program is expected in 2017 and will concern Test Blanket System connection pipes, which will connect the components located in the TBM equatorial port cell to the components located in other rooms of the Tokamak Complex via the corresponding shaft and/or corridor. With the conceptual design review planned for September 2014, the eleventh TBM Program Committee assessed the readiness of the design.   The Committee also took note of the status of the activities of the Test Blanket Program Working Group on Radwaste Management. This working group is charged with the elaboration of a potential strategy for the management of TBS radwaste and for the shipping of irradiated TBMs to Members' facilities for post-irradiation examinations. The TBM Program Committee has assessed the data on radwaste furnished by the ITER Members and on the radwaste management proposals of Agence Iter France. One of the major issues identified to date is the need for an assessment of the amount of tritium remaining in the waste and of the corresponding outgassing.   On 23 May, the ITER Organization and the Korean Domestic Agency signed the second TBM Arrangement of the program for the design, fabrication, transport and delivery of a helium-cooled ceramic reflector Test Blanket System. Four other TBMAs are expected to be signed before the end of the year. In fact the year 2014, with the planned conceptual design reviews of five Test Blanket Systems out of six, represents the beginning of a new phase for the TBM Program, which is passing from pure scientific research to nuclear engineering and realization. This aspect was stressed by the TBM Program Committee as it focused the discussion on the preparation of documentation for the various conceptual design reviews.   Reaching this phase has been made possible by the conclusion of TBM Arrangements (TBMA), which express the commitment of both ITER Members and the ITER Organization to the realization of the TBM Program. During this eleventh Program Committee meeting, a second TBMA was signed between ITER Organization and the Korean Domestic Agency for the design, fabrication, transport and delivery of a helium-cooled ceramic reflector Test Blanket System to the ITER site by 2021. The remaining four TBMAs are expected to be signed before the end of the year.   The outcome of the eleventh TBM Program Committee will reported to the ITER Council in June.

The superconducting capabilities of niobium-tin compound were discovered in the mid-1950s and for the better part of five decades its principal application was in the niche area of high field laboratory magnets.   Due to their capacity to operate at large currents and strong magnetic fields, niobium-tin magnets were central to the development of a new generation of more precise nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) systems in the 1980s and 1990s.   Niobium-tin, however, is more expensive to produce and much more difficult to process than the more "standard" niobium-titanium alloy—considered the workhorse of superconductivity. For medical applications, 99 percent of superconducting magnets are niobium-titanium.   The demand for high-performance niobium-tin dramatically increased a few years ago when procurement for the ITER Project was launched. Production worldwide, which hadn't exceeded 15 tonnes per year, had to ramp up to meet the demand of one single machine. Together, ITER's toroidal field and central solenoid magnet systems will absorb more than 600 tonnes of niobium-tin strands.   In order to meet these demands, ITER had to step up the world production of niobium-tin strands by one order of magnitude—both an opportunity for the market to develop but also a challenge to enforce uniform quality assurance and quality controls standards for all the players. In total, nine suppliers in six countries have taken part in ITER niobium-tin strand production.   JASTEC (Japan) is one of them. An offspring of Kobe Steel Ltd., the company was established in 2002 to specialize in superconducting strand and magnets for NMR medical equipment. In 2008, JASTEC won a contract from the Japanese Domestic Agency for ITER for 20 tonnes of chromium-plated niobium-tin strands destined for the toroidal field magnets. The company delivered the first 50 kilos of the order one year later.   In 2013, following the signature of a second contract, the company began producing niobium-tin strand for the ITER central solenoid.   Accompanied by Yasuno Yokota, General Manager, sales and Dai Ikegaya, General Manager of the wire factory, JASTEC President Yoshiro Nishimoto (right) visited ITER on 9 May. "We had proved our capability in niobium-tin for NMR with very high field," explained Yoshiro Nishimoto, the company's president, on the occasion of a recent visit to ITER. "We took on this work because we wanted to contribute to this great project. We made heavy investments and today, the ITER contracts account for half of our production."   The company, which is also involved in the fabrication of ITER gyrotrons, hopes that large-scale industrial markets will open up after ITER. "Fusion energy is very promising. I may not see its implementation," says the JASTEC president, "but our company certainly will."   Over the past six years, a strong and productive relationship was established between JASTEC, the Japanese Domestic Agency and the ITER Organization. "Our collaboration is a good example of how the ITER in-kind procurement process can be successfully implemented, says Arnaud Devred, who heads the Superconductor Systems & Auxiliaries Section at ITER".

The doors of the EAST superconducting tokamak in Hefei, China were closed on Monday 19 May, signalling the kickoff of the first round of the 2014 experimental campaign after nearly 20 months of upgrading activities. Tremendous efforts have been made during past two years to enhance the capabilities of EAST, including the upgrading or modification of nearly every sub-system except superconducting magnets to enable higher performance and truly steady-state operation. In the upcoming experimental campaign, the EAST operator ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) hopes that the tokamak can realize high performance steady-state operation of over 400s plasma duration, which is also one of ITER's targets. The major upgrades on the machine include: an increase of the heating and current drive system capacity from 10 MW to 26 MW (see detail below); the installation of 76 diagnostic systems to collect information on all plasma parameters; the replacement of the upper divertor with an ITER-like tungsten monoblock configuration that has a heat-removing capacity of up to 10MW/m²; the installation of top and bottom internal cryopumps with a 160M³/s pumping speed; the introduction of 16 ITER-like resonant magnetic perturbation coils together with several other new edge-localized mode (ELM) mitigation methods; the installation of two ITER-like vertical stability coils to better control plasma vertical displacements; an upgrading of the fast control power supply and plasma control system to facilitate the control of high plasma performance discharges; and, finally, the improvement of systems such as the poloidal and toroidal field power suppliers, cryogenics, cryogenic transmission lines, high-temperature superconducting current leads and fuelling systems for more reliable operation. Pump-down operations are beginning at EAST. Plasma operation can be expected at the end of June after a successful cooldown and the full commissioning of all upgraded sub-systems. The major task of the first campaign, which will be completed at the end of July, is to tune each and every sub-system so that they perform with high reliability and availability and to establish a solid technical base for the next campaign. Over 100s in H-mode operation is foreseen in this campaign. The second campaign of the year is planned to start in October when additional neutral beam and electron cyclotron heating power is added (see detail below). As always, EAST is open to the worldwide fusion community. Calls for experiment proposals will be sent out in early September with a list of detailed machine capabilities and diagnostics. We look forward to working with our international partners to achieve exciting results on EAST. * The capacity of EAST's heating and current drive systems has been increased from 10 to 26MW as follows: 4 MW CW 2.45GHz and 6MW 4.6GHz LHCD systems; a 12MW CW ion cyclotron radio frequency heating system with wide band frequency of 26-70MHz; and a 4MW 50-80keV neutral beam injection system. In October, a second 4MW neutral beam injector and a 2MW electron cyclotron resonance heating system of 140GHz are expected.

The first of a series of steps to qualify the fabrication of the ITER blanket's first wall panels has been achieved in Europe, with the successful manufacturing of a semi-prototype. The completion of the 1:6-scale model moves the European Domestic Agency a step closer to obtaining qualification for series production.   The panels are 1 x 1.5 metre detachable elements which, together with the shield block, form the ITER blanket modules. Designed to withstand the heat flux from the plasma, the first wall panels are high-tech components made of beryllium tiles that are bonded with a copper alloy and 316L (N) stainless steel. Europe is responsible for procuring the normal heat flux first wall panels (about half of the 440 panels required for the blanket); China and Russia are sharing the procurement of enhanced heat flux panels that make up the other half.   The semi-prototype will now be subjected to an electron beam capable of applying the same heat flux the panels will experience in the ITER machine, bringing the surface temperature of the beryllium to approximately 400°C. The European Domestic Agency has awarded the grant for high heat flux testing to the German research centre Forschungszentrum Jülich, which expects to complete the campaign this summer.   A Procurement Arrangement is scheduled to be signed with the ITER Organization in early 2015 for the procurement of Europe's portion of the first wall panels.  

​On 21 May, directly after the regular class schedule, students, graduates and young scientists of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology had the chance to meet representatives of the Russian Domestic Agency. The exchange was organized as part of ITER Day to inform Russia's future physicists about the international collaboration for fusion, progress in its implementation, and the ongoing activities in Russia carried out within its framework.The head of the Russian Domestic Agency, Anatoly Krasilnikov, stressed that attraction of young scientists for fusion is based not only on the potential of the ITER Project, but also the national development program for the construction of a domestic fusion facility. "This is the decades-long project and we need highly qualified personnel to work for it!" ITER Russia is intensifying its activities to inform and attract the best minds.During ITER Day, students heard about development work on a number of diagnostic systems for ITER (reflectometry, neutron diagnostics, optical systems) underway in Russian institutes where, the speakers stressed, employments opportunities exist.

​A six-kilometre-long channel, the Canal de Caronte, leads from the Mediterranean Gulf of Fos into the inland sea Étang de Berre. At its narrowest along the south shore of the island that encloses the old town of Martigues, its width does not exceed 25 metres.On Monday 31 March, the barge carrying the 800-ton ITER test convoy deftly negotiated the canal and passed under the Martigues drawbridge, a spectacular sight that marks the entrance into the Étang de Berre.

​ITER's Pulsed Power Electrical Network (PPEN) will supply alternating current (AC) power to the machine's superconducting coils and heating and current drive systems. The Chinese Domestic Agency has full responsibility for the procurement of this powerful system; recently Manufacturing Readiness Reviews held at three industrial suppliers proved the high standards of design carried out so far and the readiness of the detailed work plans and execution processes. In the presence of a large number of Chinese experts as well as representatives from the ITER Organization, reviews were held on six system sub-packages in April. For the technical issues identified, a work schedule has been established. A major step forward toward manufacturing has been achieved for the PPEN, which will distribute up to 500 MW of continuous power during operational pulses.

​The European Domestic Agency for ITER, Fusion for Energy, has signed a four-year Framework Partnership Agreement with a consortium formed by European research centres—DTU Denmark and IST-IPFN Portugal—for the development and design of the Collective Thompson Scattering diagnostic for ITER.The primary objective of the Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) diagnostic is to monitor fast ion behaviour across the plasma radius in seven locations. Fast ions are elusive particles that are a natural consequence of the fusion process and plasma heating techniques. Although they represent less than five percent of plasma density, fast ions carry up to one-third of the plasma's kinetic energy. Optimizing their confinement within the plasma is important as they play a major part in sustaining the high plasma temperatures required for fusion by colliding with—and transferring their energy to—the 'bulk' particles in the plasma.However, fast ions behave unpredictably; while some remain within the magnetic field, others escape the plasma and reduce confinement, or 'cause mischief' by contributing their energy to and amplifying plasma disturbances.The CTS diagnostic system will consist of mirrors and antennas integrated into one of the equatorial ports of the ITER machine. The upper antenna and mirrors will launch a powerful, single and high frequency microwave beam (1 MW at 60 GHz, equivalent to 1,000 microwave ovens at full power) into the plasma and record the scattered electromagnetic waves through the lower mirrors and receiver antennas. These measurements will allow scientists to establish the dynamics and distribution of the ions in the plasma—in particular the fast ions.

​Every other year, Turkey organizes the International Conference on Superconductivity and Magnetism (ICSM). On 27 April-2 May, the fourth edition of the conference was held in Antalya, on the southwestern coast of the country, gathering more than 1,000 scientists from all over the world. At the special opening plenary session on 27 April, after a welcome speech by Annette Bussmann-Holder from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State, the next speaker gave a recollection of his long experience researching oxides: Alexander Müller, who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz, had just celebrated his 87th birthday and recalled having participated in the 1958 Geneva conference where the concept of tokamak was first discussed outside Russia. He is also the co-author of a patent on spherical plasma confinement.   Arnaud Devred, ITER Superconductor Section Leader, had the privilege of speaking just after Alexander Müller. His general presentation on the ITER Project focused on the magnet systems and detailed the present status of manufacturing. "I sensed a real interest in ITER," he says, "particularly from Prof. Ali Gencer, who chaired the conference and is a strong promoter of the project in government circles."

Visit the EFDA website to read the May issue of Fusion in Europe on line.Article highlights include the latest news on the establishment of EUROfusion—the umbrella organization of European fusion research that will succeed EFDA; upgrade work on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST); this year's work program for JET, currently the largest functioning tokamak in the world; and news from some of the younger faces of fusion.Consult Fusion in Europe here.