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FR

Bolting a symbolic piece of steel

10 Oct 2014 - R.A.
Wes_DG_etc.jpg
"Workers" of choice for the symbolic bolting of WEST's first component: left to right, Alain Bécoulet, director of CEA's Magnetic Fusion Research Institute (IRFM); Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physical Sciences Division; Jérôme Bucalossi, head of the WEST project; and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization. © Christophe Roux - IRFM

It's a small piece of steel: 30 centimetres long, 10 centimetres wide and 3 centimetres thick, a support plate that, together with several others, will hold the ring-shaped supporting structure for the high-field protection panels of the Tore Supra vacuum vessel.

However small and unassuming, the piece of steel was invested with strong symbolic value on Monday 6 October as it became the first component to be integrated as part of the WEST project—a program of radical transformation that will turn the 30-year-old CEA-Euratom tokamak into a test bench for one of the most critical ITER components, the divertor.

Tore_Supra_Fisheye_small.jpg
A program of radical transformation is turning the 30-year-old CEA-Euratom tokamak into a test bench for one of the most critical ITER components, the divertor.

The symbolic importance was emphasized by the choice of "workers" for the bolting job: Gabriele Fioni, director of CEA's Physical Sciences Division; Alain Bécoulet, director of CEA's Magnetic Fusion Research Institute (IRFM); Jérôme Bucalossi, head of the WEST project and Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ITER Organization.

 "Our objective is to have the platform ready in early 2016, explains IRFM Deputy-Director André Grosman, and to launch experiments immediately after. Today, we laid the first stone; next year we'll install the internal coils that will act like ITER's bottom Poloidal Field Coil and create the "X Point" that draws the plasma to the divertor."
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