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A few years before ITER is due to come into operation, the advanced superconducting "satellite" tokamak JT-60SA, conducted under the Broader Approach Agreement between Japan and Europe, will begin operation. 

Another milestone on the road to JT-60SA assembly was achieved in February, as six European-built helium pressure vessels—destined for JT-60SA's cryogenic system—successfully passed final works acceptance tests and can now be readied for shipment to Japan.

The acceptance tests, which consisted of verifications to ensure that the components conform to international standards and to ensure that there are no defects, was carried out during a period of seven days each.

In total, the six pressure vessels will store 3.6 tons of gaseous helium. Each 22-metre pressure vessel weighs about 73 tons, and has a diameter of 4 metres and a volume of 250 m3. As the vessels will store pure helium, the tightness and cleanliness requirements are demanding. If a fast discharge of the current in the superconducting coils is necessary, one of the vessels is also designed to receive cold helium (-254 degrees C) discharged from the coils through the cryogenic system quench line.

The contract for the supply and transport to Japan of the pressure vessels and their equipment was awarded by the European Domestic Agency to A. Silva Matos Metalomecanica SA (ASMM, Portugal).

Read the full article on the European Domestic Agency website.

 

​Knowledge is not cheap. The world spends more than $1 trillion a year on research and development, including basic research. The biggest projects—"research infrastructures" like particle accelerators and DNA databases—carry correspondingly big price tags.
ITER, the experimental, international fusion reactor in the south of France, is taking years and more than EUR 13 billion to build. The Square Kilometre Array, the world's biggest radio telescope now under development in South Africa and other southern countries, will cost well more than EUR 1.5 billion   It's all great science, no doubt. But is it a great investment?     Read the full report from Science|Business, prefaced by Rolf Heuer, Director-General, CERN.

​Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is one of the partners in a materials research project that has recently been awarded significant European funding.

The project will explore techniques that can accurately examine engineering components at a range of sizes and scales — right down to the nanoscale analysis carried out in Culham's Materials Research Laboratory (MRL).

To get a consistent picture of the properties of a material, researchers need to examine it at different length scales. This new study will look at how changing the specimen size or the size of the probe used for testing affects the measured engineering properties. Test methods or design rules can then be developed that compensate for such 'size effects.'

It is hoped that European companies can use the results to design and manufacture better components with longer life and lower energy use. The work will also benefit the fusion and fission research sectors, where smaller samples represent less of a safety risk when examining the condition of components.

Led by the National Physical Laboratory, the project consortium brings together major industry players such as EDF, AMEC, AWE and Tata Steel with universities and research institutes around Europe. The grant of ~EUR 1.8 million has been made by European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET).

Read more on the CCFE website.