The break of spring
11 Apr 2016
Spring has appeared on the ITER site, with green and yellow sprouting in the surrounding hills and along the platform's embankments — for Newsline, the perfect time to take a spring break.
We'll be back on 25 April to commemorate one of fusion history's watershed moments — Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov's speech at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell (UK) on 26 April 1956.
In the meantime work continues to progress on site, as the gallery below can attest. Workers are installing rebar at the second basement level (B1) on the east side of the Tokamak Complex; cladding work is nearly finished on the Assembly Hall; and concrete pouring for the cryoplant's underground structure almost complete.
Progress on the ITER site relies on finely tuned logistics. As concrete mixer trucks rush to the cryoplant worksite, every inch of ground surrounding the Tokamak Pit seems to be occupied by stacks of embedded plates, formwork equipment and steel rebar.
Work on the foundations and underground structures of the football-field-size ITER cryoplant is coming to an end. Soon, approximately four dozen concrete pillars (16 metres high) will be erected to support the building's steel structure. The objective is to install the first plant components at the end of the year.
Tandis que démarre le chantier d'aménagement des chaussées, on met la touche finale aux travaux de l'extrémité sud de l'Installation de bobinage des aimants de champ poloïdal. Photo: F4E
Au fond de la fosse d'isolation sismique, l'installation des patins parasismiques sur lesquels reposera le radier du Complexe tokamak progresse. Photo: F4E
Concentric circles surround the space reserved for the ITER Tokamak where, for now, only the central crane stands. Including the machine, some 400,000 tonnes of concrete, metal and machinery will rest on the B1 basemat of the Tokamak Complex when construction and assembly works are brought to a close.