Giants... Three of the five cranes planned for Tokamak Complex construction activities will rise over 75 metres (76 m, 80 m and 82 m) and have lifting capacities of 6-8 tonnes at the tip of their 55- to 65-metre-long booms. The giants will not be alone. As wall erection is due to begin before the end of this month, two other cranes ranging in height from 55 to 63 metres "under the hook," are in various stages of assembly. One, the central crane (52 metres high), will be anchored right in the middle of the Tokamak Complex basemat slab. Equipped with a shorter boom (35 metres), it will handle loads of up to 9 tonnes.Whereas laying rebar for the construction of the basemat slab required a lifting capacity of 1.5 to 2 tonnes, the construction activities planned in the Tokamak Pit will require stronger "workhorses," as heavy prefabricated elements and five-metre pieces of formwork will be handled. As assembly work was progressing on the two large cranes closest to ITER Headquarters, anchorage for the the central crane (52 metres high) was visible on this picture of the Tokamak Complex basemat slab. Equipped with a 35-metre boom, the central crane will handle loads of up to 9 tonnes. Operating in a relatively restricted area, the Tokamak Complex cranes will be guided by sophisticated interference software that will coordinate their movements and ensure the safety of the handling operations.The two large cranes closest to ITER Headquarters have now reached their final height. Where it takes one week to assemble a standard 45-metre crane, it will have taken four to raise these monsters to their full stature.

On Tuesday 9 October, a small group from the United States led by Michael Knotek of the US Department of Energy was treated to a worksite tour with an unusual twist: the opportunity to visit the "basement" of the Tokamak Complex.   Underneath the Tokamak Complex slab are the 493 pillars and anti-seismic bearings that will support the weight of the Tokamak Complex (400,000 metric tons) and absorb ground motion in the case of a seismic event.   With 1.9 metres between the lower concrete slab and the upper (B2) slab, there is room enough for most visitors to walk around comfortably. But not US group member David Moncton. At 1.93 m (6"4'), plus safety helmet, he was too tall to stand fully upright ...  

It was a successful test launch. The Industrial Info Day that took place on Tuesday 7 October attracted more than 150 participants from 87 companies. Most attended the event at ITER Headquarters in person; others joined via the ITER Domestic Agencies or livestream. All were interested by the comprehensive presentation of ITER's Tokamak Cooling Water System and corresponding procurement strategies. The aim of this first Info Day was to involve industry at a very early stage in the procurement and the manufacturing of ITER's Tokamak Cooling Water System as well as auxiliary systems and piping. Information was also provide on the centralized approach for the piping needs of other systems such as vacuum, test blanket modules, atmosphere detritiation systems and others. "As this is a very complex procurement program, we wanted to give as much information to the interested industries as possible and also receive their feedback," explained Françoise Flament, head of ITER's Procurement & Contracts Division. From the feedback received immediately after the event, the ITER Organization procurement and technical teams were able to declare the event a success. "We have the impression that, thanks to this initiative, the company representatives now have a better understanding of the scope of work and the needs of the ITER Organization and the US Domestic Agency, which has the global responsibility for the procurement of this system," said Françoise. "Participants were keen to give us their feedback on the overall strategy and their preliminary views on the procurement approach, and this will help us to improve our approach. The event is also likely to trigger industry competition, thus helping us to secure the cost and the schedule of the ITER Project." Other Industrial Info Day events will be organized in the coming months for assembly contracts and the procurement of atmosphere detritiation systems procurement. The Industrial Info Day attracted more than 150 participants from 87 companies. Most attended the event at ITER Headquarters in person; others joined via the ITER Domestic Agencies or livestream.

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. 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."

When a CCFE engineer Tom Barrett and colleagues embarked on a European-wide project to design a key component to protect fusion reactors from thermal damage, they never expected their solution could come in the form of a household object. The component in question is the exhaust system of the 'DEMO' prototype power plant. Known as the divertor, it is a trench where the hot fusion plasma will be deliberately deposited. Doing so enables heat to be conducted away while controlling impurities, and is a way of managing the ejection of power and helium waste.The divertor surface will be dotted with thousands of small tungsten blocks, forming the divertor targets. Millimetres below these targets, a water coolant flow removes the waste heat and regulates the divertor's temperature, and so the structural integrity of these components is critical. Damage to the coolant pipe will mean the coolant leaks out and the whole reactor has to shut down for costly repairs. So Tom and his colleagues' job is to find a way of separating the very hot tungsten (1,500 degrees C) from the not-quite-so-hot cooling water (a mere 200 degrees C). One idea is to focus on the so-called 'interlayer' between the tungsten armour and cooling structure.   The Brillo pad team. © CCFE "We think the layer between the two surfaces has to be spongey, but also act as a thermal barrier as well as survive the high heat flux," Tom explains. "From our analysis it looks like a good material for the job is a kind of felt made from copper — a bit like a Brillo pad you'd use to clean your dishes."

The 25th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2014) will be held from 13 to 18 October 2014 in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Federation.   The event, hosted by the Government of the Russian Federation through the Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation, provides a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to fusion as a source of nuclear energy. The Conference is the world's largest conference in the field of nuclear fusion.   Thematic sessions on topics such as fusion engineering, fusion nuclear physics and technology, innovative confinement concepts and more will be held as part of the Conference, which also includes the awarding of a Nuclear Fusion Prize for outstanding achievements in nuclear fusion.   The IAEA hosts an International Conference on Nuclear Fusion Energy every second year. More information is available at the conference website.

​Scientists are reporting a significant advance in the quest to develop an alternative approach to nuclear fusion. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab's Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.Read more on Science web site.

​The autumn issue of Fusion in Europe is available for download at this link.The 20-page issue covers the recent launch of EUROfusion (the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy), preparations for the initial plasma experiments on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator (scheduled next year), and news from the control rooms of the JET and ASDEX Upgrade tokamaks.Fusion in Europe is published three times per year.

​On 9 October 2014 the European Commission officially launched the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, EUROfusion for short. EUROfusion manages the European fusion research activities on behalf of Euratom, which awards the appropriate grant to the consortium. The new consortium agreement will substitute the fourteen year-old European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), as well as 29 bilateral Association agreements between the Commission and research institutions in 27 countries. The Grant Agreement (contract) provides EUR 424 million in funding from the Euratom Horizon 2020 programme 2014-18 and the same amount from Member States, adding up to an overall budget of EUR 850 million for 5 years. The launch of EUROfusion was celebrated with Europe's fusion research community in the heart of the European Quarter, the Solvay Library. Read the full report on the new EUROfusion website here.

​VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has reached an important objective in the development of ITER fusion reactor remote control, when the divertor cassette was replaced for the first time using remote control in the research facility for remote controlled maintenance. This operation is one of the most demanding measures in the forthcoming ITER fusion reactor, the construction of which is proceeding rapidly in Cadarache, Southern France. The requirements for the technologies used in ITER, are high, since they are used to control the fusion plasma burning at a temperature of hundred million degrees centigrade. Once the ITER comes into use, its core is activated when bombed by neutrons. Therefore, all maintenance, inspection and repair measures are performed using remote operation. Located in the lower part of the ITER reactor chamber, the 54 cassettes of the reactor component, or the divertor, measuring 3.4 m x 2.3 m x 0.6 m and weighing approximately 10 tonnes each, need to be handled at tolerances of a few millimetres. The divertor cassette is like a giant ashtray, into which the hot ashes and impurities settle.   Read more on the PhysOrg website.