Divertor Test Platform facility inaugurated in Finland

2 Feb 2009 - Sabina Griffith

The first full-size prototype for ITER: The divertor cassette multifunctional mover (left).

The ITER Divertor Test Platform Facility, a research platform to develop and test the maintenance robot and remote handling operations, was inaugurated last Thursday in Tampere, Finland. The facility hosts the first full-size prototype of the cassette multifunctional mover.

Celebrating another important milestone in the history of building ITER: Erkki Leppavuori, CEO of VTT, Octavio Quintana Trias, Director of EURATOM, Norbert Holtkamp, ITER Principle Deputy Director General and Didier Gambier, Director of the European Domestic Agency.

The cassette mover will be required to transport ITER's divertor cassettes, each weighing 9 to 10 tonnes, along a complex trajectory in order to negotiate the path along the divertor access duct from the transfer cask to the plasma chamber. This process must be executed with pinpoint accuracy since the access route is such that delicate plasma facing elements of the 3.5 metre-long x 2.5 metre-high cassette have to pass within a few centimetres of the vacuum vessel surfaces.

The 20m-long, 65-ton structure is the product of a successful collaboration between the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Tampere University of Technology.

The 20-metre-long, 65-tonne structure is the product of a successful collaboration between the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The design and manufacture of this core prototype has taken four years under the management of Euratom and the fusion research centres through the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA).

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