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Europe signs contract for 62 tonnes of copper strands

13 Apr 2009 - Aris Apollonatos, F4E
Didier Gambier, Director of the European Domestic Agency (4th from left), and his team from the European agency "Fusion for Energy" after signing the contract for 62 tonnes of copper strand with the Finnish company Luvata. Photo courtesy of F4E.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER has signed a contract for the manufacture of 62 tonnes of chromium-plated copper strand, which will form part of ITER's superconducting magnet system. This contract marks the launch of Europe's first in-kind hardware technological contribution to the ITER Project.

ITER will operate with a special type of high purity chromium-plated copper strand. It has high conductivity at extremely low temperatures, and limits the temperature inside the cable in case of superconductivity loss. Strands of such kind are mostly used in superconductors and cryogenic applications.

Superconducting and copper strands are twisted together to build high-amperage cables made of more than 1,000 individual strands. The cables are inserted into a stainless steel jacket and compacted to their final diameter in order to be used in the toroidal field coils of ITER. It is estimated that about 180 tonnes of pure copper strands will be needed for these coils.

The contract for the production of the chromium-plated copper strand was awarded to Luvata, an international metals, manufacturing and technology supplier based in Finland with a workforce of over 8,000 people in 18 countries.

Cross section of ITER toroidal field conductor. Photo courtesy of ENEA.
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