"CEA, and specifically the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM) here in Cadarache, has the engineering know-how and the 'tokamak culture' that was indispensable to developing this assembly tool," explains Bertrand Peluso, the MIFI technical coordinator on CEA side.
Fabien Ferlay, the CEA mechanical engineer who led the development team at MIFI, says that the tool was "inspired by robotic arms and telemanipulators." Manually operated, it uses a zero-gravity "mass compensation" system¹ that enables the operators to exert minimal effort as they move the heavy pins into position. And it is "as compact as possible" to fit and operate within the confined space below the vertical coils.
The handling and positioning tool has been successfully demonstrated on a mockup of the box-type outer intercoil structure at MIFI. And it comes with an option, which the team presented last week to the ITER Organization and assembly contractor representatives (
TAC2 contract)—an "augmented reality" setting that superimposes a virtual 3D rendition of the coil and workspace environment on the steel reality of the mockup.
The mockup and tool have now left Cadarache for the SIMIC facility in Italy. As a partner in the TAC2 machine assembly consortium, SIMIC will finalize the equipment, add functionalities for extra actions such as inserting custom shims or tightening the "superbolt" nuts, and test how the assembly sequence unfolds.
When all this is done, the mockup and tool will return to a workshop close to ITER, where future operators will train in the art of connecting, by hand, components as high as a six-storey building and weighing several hundred tonnes.
¹In a "zero-gravity" device, a system of counterweights, cogwheels and a synchronization shaft balances the mass that needs to be handled.