Mission possible

28 Aug 2009 - Fabrice Simon and Yuri Ilin, ITER poloidal field coil designers
8 weeks, 19 designers, 800 pages, 4 coils—these were the boundary conditions for a mission that was successfully completed today (not shown in the picture are the designers B. Martin, J. Grimaud, V. Miot,S. Brun, R. Pont, G. Rinaudo, D. Gallet and C. Arion).

The schedule was aggressive, but they met the deadline in time: in the space of eight weeks, the Poloidal Field Coil Section and 19 CAD designers from the ITER Organization and the two companies Sogeti and Assystem finished the 3D models and 800 detailed drawings of ITER's poloidal field coils numbers 2 to 5. This allows the European Domestic Agency to go ahead with launching the call for tender in the middle of September. Deadline for the job was Monday, 31 August—the mission was completed on this Friday 28. "It was a tough race," said Thomas Vollmann, the Design Office Coordinator for the ITER Magnets, "but we made it."