Before they are pre-assembled and readied for integration into the machine, the ITER components will need to be cleaned to meet the stringent cleanliness requirements for vacuum. The operation will take place in a dedicated building, the Cleaning Facility, located south of the Assembly Hall.   The Cleaning Facility will also operate as an airlock between the Assembly Hall and the outside environment. In order to minimize the amount of dust entering the clean environment of the Assembly Hall, the building's two large doors will not  be opened at the same time.   Depending on their size and weight, components will be moved out of storage and into the Cleaning Facility by different types of vehicles — one of the most significant being the versatile "self-propelled mobile trailers" that will transport the 1,250-tonne cryostat base section from the neighbouring Cryostat Workshop.   Once the component is "unpacked" in the closed building, it will be cleaned using a number of different techniques such as compressed clean air, pressurized demineralized water, and special detergents. As the atmosphere inside the Cleaning Facility will become contaminated by dust and particles from the cleaning operations, it will need to be ventilated for approximately eight  hours before the door to the Assembly Hall is opened and the component transferred.   Preparatory work for the Cleaning Facility began in September 2015. The foundation slab, strong enough to withstand the wheel loads of heavy transporters, is nearing completion and building construction is due to start in a few weeks.

Professor Predhiman Krishan Kaw from the Institute for Plasma Research in India has been named the 2015 laureate of the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Prize for "outstanding contributions" in the field of plasma physics, said a press release issued on 13 January by the Association of Asia-Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS), Division of Plasma Physics. Recognized internationally for significant contributions to many areas of plasma physics, Professor Kaw has authored over 380 research publications in scientific journals. The prize specifically recognizes "seminal contributions in the areas of laser-plasma interactions, strongly coupled dusty plasmas, turbulence, and non-linear effects in magnetic fusion devices." After obtaining a PhD at age 18 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Professor Kaw spent time as a researcher at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, New Jersey, US. In 1982 he returned to India to spearhead the establishment of a national magnetic fusion program, founding the Institute for Plasma Research and playing a leading role in gaining international recognition for the national program. Named Year of Science Chair by the Indian Department of Science & Technology, he continues to be active in research and in the mentoring and training of the younger generation of plasma physicists in India. Professor Kaw was the first Chair of the ITER Council Science and Technology Advisory Committee and led the committee's deliberations from 2007 to 2009. "Those of us within the ITER community who have worked with Professor Kaw over many years in the pursuit of fusion energy have appreciated not only his deep insight into plasma physics issues, but also his tireless enthusiasm for the achievement of our common goal," said ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot. "Over a long and productive career he has greatly enriched our understanding of physics processes in very different types of plasma with important implications for applications in many areas of modern plasma research." Professor Kaw is the second laureate of the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Prize, which was founded by AAPPS (Department of Plasma Physics) in 2014 to recognize outstanding contributions to experimental and/or theoretical research in fundamental plasma physics and plasma applications in all fields of physics. The prize is sponsored by the Future Energy Research Association. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was an Indian astrophysicist (1910-1995) who received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the structure and evolution of stars, work which was seminal in the development of the theory of black holes. The Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) is an umbrella organization for physical societies and institutes in the Asia Pacific region devoted to the joint promotion of research, teaching and regional collaboration in physics.

The 7th Intercultural Seminar on "21st Century Expatriation: New Perspectives" organized by Agence ITER France took place at the School of Law and Political Science of the Aix-Marseille University on 27 November 2015.   Several workshops were organized in which Masters students in intercultural negotiation; international trainers in diversity, psychology and human resources; international human resource managers and researchers learned about stress management, story telling as a new way to learn, expatriate management, and experiences.   Over 80 people from France, Japan, the Netherlands, the USA, Great Britain, Scotland, South Korea, Russia, China, Australia, Germany attended. Shawn Simpson, who heads the Intercultural & Language Program at Agence ITER France (350 language learners and over 1,000 participants to intercultural activities every year), commented on the importance of the seminar: "The cultural and linguistic diversity at the ITER Organization is unique and deserves worldwide recognition. The aim of these seminars is to promote the exchange of new practices in intercultural research, learning and training. The people of ITER are the ground-breakers here and their experience is of great interest to intercultural professionals and students."   View the interviews (in English and French) here.

In December, more than 100 people attended a ceremony in Hefei, China, to mark an important milestone for the ITER Project—the completion of the first Procurement Arrangement concluded between the Chinese Domestic Agency and the ITER Organization. Signed in 2008, the Procurement Arrangement covered the supply of 7.5 percent of the conductor needed for ITER's giant toroidal field coils.   Sophisticated manufacturing techniques and demanding process control and certification standards were set into place to meet ITER's technical specifications. The first conductor unit length was completed in the spring of 2009 and a short sample cut from this conductor was delivered in May 2009 to the SULTAN test facility, where conductor samples are exposed to magnetic fields, current intensity and temperature conditions that are equivalent to those of the ITER operational environment. The test results were successful and the conductor was accepted.   Series manufacturing began smoothly in August 2011, the tests on the conductor "short sample" cut from a production unit length were completed in May 2015, and the final delivery of niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) superconducting strand was shipped by Western Superconducting Technology (WST) in September 2015 to subsequent cabling and jacketing. The successful completion of the last unit length of toroidal field conductor is a significant milestone on the path to building ITER and a sign of the capacity of Chinese industry to meet the stringent ITER requirements.   The ceremony on 18 December was attended by Cao Jianlin, former Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology MOST; Luo Delong, head of the Chinese Domestic Agency; Wan Baonian, president of Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences ASIPP; and other governmental and institutional representatives.   Arnaud Devred, head of ITER's Superconductor Systems & Auxiliaries Section and guest speaker, called the effort to collectively build ITER not only an amazing technical challenge, but also one of the greatest human adventures of all times. "Over the last eight years, one of my guiding principles was to set uniform standards and to bring all toroidal field strand, cable and conductor suppliers to the same levels of quality assurance and quality control. As I had an opportunity to say in Xi'an in September at the time of the completion and delivery of the last Chinese toroidal field strands, all suppliers, ASIPP and Chinese Domestic Agency staff can be proud of what they have accomplished."

What should have been a standard two-hour visit turned out to be a four-hour crash course in fusion. For the first time in the history of the ITER Project, a 29-person delegation from the African continent came to visit ITER this week. Taking part in a conference in Marseille on public-private partnerships in the energy sector, the lawyers, engineers and ministry representatives from Cameroun, Burkina Faso, Congo, Togo, Senegal, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Maurice, Mali and Uganda seized the opportunity to spend an afternoon at ITER Headquarters, with a visit to the site and presentations on fusion science and technology and the organization of the world's largest International scientific collaboration. "What you are doing here is really amazing," Tarek Toko, from the West African Development Bank, said on the way back to the bus. "You must succeed!"

The organization charged with overseeing and coordinating the European Union's quest for fusion power, EUROfusion, plans to update during 2016 the European Union's 2012 strategic plan to put fusion electricity on the grid by 2050, according to Xavier Litaudon speaking at the annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates on 16-17 December in Washington, DC. ITER remains "the key facility of the roadmap" but the update will incorporate the impact of slippage in the ITER construction schedule. A new ITER schedule is expected to be approved by the ITER Council by mid-2016 according to ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, who also spoke at the meeting. The European Union's strategic plan reflects a collaboration with Japan on the "Broader Approach" to fusion that was a part of the ITER siting decision process. According to EUROfusion, in the course of the roadmap implementation the fusion program will move "from being laboratory-based and science-driven towards an industry- and technology-driven venture." To ensure minimal delay to DEMO, the next step after ITER, the European Union has initiated a conceptual design system engineering approach that will address such issues as safety, tritium breeding, power exhaust, remote handling, component lifetime and plant availability, according to Litaudon. Experience gained from continued operation and "internationalization" of the JET tokamak and from devices JT-60SA (Japan), WEST (France) and Wendelstein 7-X (Germany) are also important elements of the plan. Ed Synakowski, head of the US fusion program, told the audience that the US had recently completed the US fusion Strategic Plan requested by Congress in 2014. Permission from Congress was needed before the Plan could be released to the public, he said. All talks from the Fusion Power Associates annual meeting, Strategies to Fusion Power, are posted at the FIRE website. Source:Fusion Power Associates