ITER Director-General visits India
ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi made stops in Mumbai and Hazira this month during a trip to India to visit with a key industrial partner.
After stakeholder meetings in China and Russia earlier this fall, the ITER Director-General was in India in October. He visited the headquarters and one of the principal manufacturing sites of Larsen & Toubro, the industrial conglomerate that was responsible for the production of the 3,800-tonne ITER cryostat.
In Mumbai, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the ITER Organization and Larsen & Toubro for technical collaboration, specifically in the area of advanced welding technology for ITER machine assembly (vacuum vessel ports, bellows...). "In previous contributions to ITER, Larsen & Toubro has demonstrated its reliability in high-tech manufacturing," stressed ITER Director-General Barabaschi "This [Memorandum of Understanding] is vital to meeting the technology challenges of the ITER Project."
On his return to ITER, a digital contract was signed with Larsen & Toubro representatives for a contract titled "Port Positioning Alignment & Welding." Ports provide access inside the vacuum vessel for auxiliary plasma heating, diagnostics, vacuum pumping, and other needs at three levels (upper, equatorial, and lower).
