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Donato Lioce, head of ITER's Tokamak Cooling Water System Section, describes the plant system that will remove heat from the ITER machine and in-vessel components as "absolutely unique."

One of its peculiarities is the sheer volume of equipment—which is absolutely huge compared to the cooling system in a nuclear fission plant. More than 6,000 tonnes of equipment, 43 kilometres of piping, 3,000 valves, heat exchangers, pumps ... all housed over the seven levels in the Tokamak Building. Another is the fact that the system is designed not only to cool, but also to heat: the same equipment that circulates cooling water can also circulate hot water to "bake" tokamak components before plasma operation, or hot gas to "dry" components before maintenance. The cyclical nature of the ITER machine, designed for 30,000 plasma pulses, also has repercussions for the design of the tokamak cooling water system and its hundreds of clients.

Follow along as Donato describes in detail the different functionalities of the ITER tokamak cooling water system, system equipment, and the procurement effort that is underway now.

Watch the eighth episode of ITER Talks here. 

See the full ITER Talks playlist on YouTube here.