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Cryolines

India's INOXCVA completes full scope

6 Sep 2021
All angles, bends and turns, a complex system of cryolines produced in India will distribute the cooling power generated by the ITER cryoplant to clients throughout the installation. Four years after manufacturing was initiated, the last batch left INOXCVA's Vadodara facility in July 2021.
INOX_8_small.jpg
Multi-process-pipe cryolines during fabrication at M/s INOXCVA, Vadodara, in 2019.
Cryolines begin their long journey in the ITER cryoplant—where the cooling fluids are produced—and continue along an elevated bridge to the Tokamak Building about 100 metres away to bring cryogenic fluids to the machine's magnets, thermal shield and cryopumps.

Ranging from 25 to 1000 millimetres in diameter, cryolines can host up to six or seven process pipes that are devoted to a specific fluid, flow direction or function; each process pipe is carefully and individually insulated to prevent thermal losses. Shipped in spools, or sections, cryolines are connected on site by highly trained welders. More than 500 sections in all will be installed in the Tokamak Complex.

INOXCVA India, a company with a quarter-century of experience in cryogenics, was responsible for manufacturing approximately 4 km of cryolines (operating at temperatures ranging from -269 to -193 °C) and about 6 km of return lines for warm gases. The manufacturing of spools began in 2017 in a specially constructed workshop complete with a clean room devoted to the most delicate and sensitive operations. (See this 2019 report from the factory floor in Vadodara.)  

The last batch, sealed under a pressurized nitrogen atmosphere and tightly wrapped in protective material, left the company's Vadodara facility on 29 July 2021. 

A small ceremony to mark the milestone was remotely attended by Sh. K.N. Vyas, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy; Bernard Bigot, Director-General of the ITER Organization; and Shashank Chaturvedi, Director of the Institute for Plasma Research. 

This brings the Indian Domestic Agency closer to completing one of its largest procurement packages—cryolines and cryodistribution, second only in value to the procurement of the ITER cryostat.

See photos of the event here.

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