Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Vacuum vessel assembly | Back in the starting blocks

    Close to two years have passed since vacuum vessel assembly was halted when defects were identified in the ITER tokamak's vacuum vessel sectors and thermal shie [...]

    Read more

  • Ride 4 Fusion | Scientific outreach on two wheels

    A group of fusion researchers has left Padua, Italy, for an 800-kilometre bike trip to the ITER site. Their goal? To share information about fusion energy resea [...]

    Read more

  • 11th ITER Games | Good fun under the Provencal sun

    A yearly tradition in the ITER community for more than a decade now, the ITER Games offer a pleasant way to reconnect among colleagues and neighbours after the [...]

    Read more

  • Manufacturing | Recent milestones in Russia

    Russia continues to deliver in-kind components to the ITER project according to procurement arrangements signed with the ITER Organization. Some recent manufact [...]

    Read more

  • Vacuum and cleanliness | Space solutions for terrestrial dust

    Satellite cleanliness engineering will help protect the ITER tokamak from construction contamination. When the ITER vacuum team realized that the level of const [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

Busbar installation

Navigating an obstacle course

What is simple and commonplace in the ordinary world, like connecting an electrical device to a power source, often takes on extraordinary dimension at ITER. Whereas in most daily-life circumstances, copper cables ranging in diameter from a few millimetres to the thickness of an arm are sufficient to transport electrical current at the appropriate intensity, some components in ITER are so unique that they require a highly sophisticated, oversized electricity distribution system.

Due to a number of physical obstacles the installation, on Wednesday 4 September, of a 1.5-tonne boomerang-shaped busbar destined for the central solenoid feeder system presented some unique challenges. (Click to view larger version...)
Due to a number of physical obstacles the installation, on Wednesday 4 September, of a 1.5-tonne boomerang-shaped busbar destined for the central solenoid feeder system presented some unique challenges.
Originating in the twin Magnet Power Conversion buildings and spanning the worksite's "central boulevard" by way of two 50-metre-long bridges, a dense network (5 km) of steel-jacketed, actively cooled aluminum bars protected by canary-yellow casing snakes into the Tokamak Complex to deliver high-intensity DC current to the machine's magnets. The thickest of these "busbars,", thicker than a train rail, are dimensioned to carry up to 70 kiloamperes (kA)—7,000 times more than a heavy-duty electrical cable.

Busbar installation began in 2019 and is now 55 percent complete. As space in the galleries inside the Tokamak Complex is getting more constrained by the day, busbar transport and positioning procedures now require 3D modelling and simulations.

The final leg of the transfer was smooth but no less delicate as the busbar had to pass over three massive auxiliary cold boxes with limited overhead clearance. (Click to view larger version...)
The final leg of the transfer was smooth but no less delicate as the busbar had to pass over three massive auxiliary cold boxes with limited overhead clearance.
On Wednesday 4 September, the teams installed a 1.5-tonne boomerang-shaped busbar destined for the central solenoid feeder system. From the beginning, the operation presented some unique challenges. "Due to the number of obstacles between the cargo lift (the system that delivers loads to the different levels of the building) and the destination, we had to find an alternate path to deliver the component," explains Arantxa Iniesta-Mancillas, Construction Manager for the DC busbars and most systems feeding power to the reactor.

The busbar (4.8 m x 5.3 m) was moved through the Cleaning Facility to the Assembly Hall by means of rolling carts, then lifted by overhead crane over the wall and deposited in a wide delivery area in the Tokamak Building. The final leg of the transfer was smooth but no less delicate as the busbar had to pass over three massive auxiliary cold boxes with limited overhead clearance.

Originating in the twin Magnet Power Conversion Buildings, busbars will reach the Tokamak Building by way of two 50-metre-long ''bridges'' spanning the construction platform's main boulevard. The bridges are now in place and the installation of electrical equipment is ongoing. (Click to view larger version...)
Originating in the twin Magnet Power Conversion Buildings, busbars will reach the Tokamak Building by way of two 50-metre-long ''bridges'' spanning the construction platform's main boulevard. The bridges are now in place and the installation of electrical equipment is ongoing.
This last phase was made possible by the availability of a smaller overhead crane, recently installed for maintenance operations to the cryogenic system. "Without the overhead crane, we would have had to dismantle all the scaffolding around the area in order to clear a path for the busbar, which would have had a major impact on other work fronts and contractors." Two other similar, boomerang-shaped busbars need to be installed in the same area and connected to the busbar lines crossing the Diagnostics Building.

Approximately 70% of the busbar lengths expected from ITER Russia (402 out of 570) have been received on site.

return to the latest published articles