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Pour les actualités en français, voir la page News in French.

Image of the week

Sector #8 to be lifted and turned

10 Feb 2025

Since December 2023, this 440-tonne vacuum vessel sector had been under another roof as repairs for dimensional non-conformities were planned and then executed on one side of the component. Last week, it was moved back to the Assembly Hall for a series of handling operations that, once completed, will allow operations to continue on its second side.

Vacuum vessel sector #8 awaits a series of operations that will "flip" it to allow access to its other side.

On Friday 7 February the double doors of the Assembly Hall opened to allow a sleeping giant to enter. Lying horizontally on its frame, vacuum vessel sector #8 had been transported just a few hundred metres from the former Cryostat Workshop by self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT).

Like sectors #6 and #7, some parts of the geometry of this sector—the bevel regions, where the sector is joined through welding to two others—needed to be rectified to ensure that automated in-pit welding tools will work as expected. With only two sector sub-assembly tools available in the Assembly Hall, the decision was made to repair sector #8 in a horizontal position, working first on one side and then on the other. From July to December 2024, the repair team rectified the bevel area on the exposed side (which will connect to sector #7 as the plasma chamber takes shape in the tokamak pit) by using automated and manual metal fill-in and machining. 

In order to start on the second side, a series of handling operations are scheduled this month.

Sector #8 arrives on its transport frame at the Cleaning Facility—an antechamber to the Assembly Hall. When it leaves again, its other side will be exposed.

In the Assembly Hall, the upending tool will be used to turn the sector to vertical, where it can be lifted by the overhead bridge cranes and brought into the tokamak pit. From there, sector #8 needs to be rotated 180 degrees so that when it returns to the upending tool it is facing the opposite direction. When sector #8 is "downended" and returned to horizontal, the opposite side will be exposed and the component can be returned to the Cryostat Workshop for the continuation of repair activities.

Of the three vacuum vessel sectors that were the initial focus of repairs, sector #7 was the first to be completed last September. It will also be the first to be lowered into the tokamak pit as a "sector module," meaning that it has been assembled with its thermal shield and two toroidal field coils. That operation is expected in April.

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