Welding operations on the ITER Cryostat have gotten underway at the Larsen & Toubro Ltd. Heavy Engineering facility in Hazira, India.   On Tuesday, 9 January, workers gathered for a picture as the first longitudinal seam of the cryostat base section was readied for "submerged arc welding."   The 3,800-tonne, stainless steel cryostat forms the vacuum-tight container surrounding the ITER vacuum vessel and magnets. It will act as a very large refrigerator, keeping the magnets at superconducting temperature (4.2 K or minus 269° C).   The ITER cryostat, part of Indian procurement responsibilities, will be dispatched from India in 54 modules to be assembled into four large sections in the on-site Cryostat Workshop.   The four sections (base, lower cylinder, upper cylinder and top lid) will then be transported to the Tokamak Pit, where they will be welded together.   The base section of the cryostat will be the first large component installed in the Tokamak Pit. The top lid of the cryostat will be the last, set into place after the installation of the vacuum vessel, magnets, thermal shielding and central solenoid.   Delivery of the first modules on the ITER site is expected in less than two years.   (With Dilshad Sulaiman, ITER India)  

Read the rest of the article on US ITER web site. To initiate and maintain plasma current, ITER requires a giant solenoid—which will be the largest pulsed electromagnet ever built. The 1,000-metric-ton solenoid located in the centre of the ITER Tokamak will have 5.5 gigajoules of stored energy and be about 18 metres, or 60 feet, tall.   The Oak Ridge National Laboratory US ITER team leading central solenoid development and fabrication has developed a firm basis for the design and achieved a number of key milestones in the last six months, including a final design review in December 2013. Authorization to proceed to manufacturing is expected in May 2014 from the project's coordinating body, the ITER Organization.   "The central solenoid development has followed a unique process," said David Everitt, the central solenoid system manager. "We brought the fabricator, General Atomics in San Diego, on board early to help with manufacturing review and development. As the central solenoid design progressed, the fabricator has been taking our design, prototyping it and providing feedback."   That approach has helped US ITER resolve a number of engineering challenges. Not only is the central solenoid unusually large and powerful, but it also is tightly integrated into the ITER magnet system.   ITER uses a magnetic confinement approach to contain 100-million-degree-Celsius plasmas within carefully defined magnetic fields. In some locations, there will be only 10 mm of space—the width of a thick pencil—between the massive central solenoid and a 13 metre, or 45 foot, tall "D"-shaped toroidal field magnet.   Wayne Reiersen, the US ITER magnet systems team leader, noted The 1,000-metric-ton solenoid located in the centre of the ITER Tokamak will have 5.5 gigajoules of stored energy and be about 18 metres, or 60 feet, tall. that "the actions proposed in the final design review report are thoughtful and provide us with excellent feedback on the central solenoid design and path forward. We will really benefit from this review."   Overall, the final design review confirmed that the central solenoid design is well supported by analysis and by research and development.   The solenoid will be composed of six stacked modules, each made of conductor wound into pancake-like layers. An individual module weighs more than 110 metric tons. The manufacturing process for the modules of the central solenoid will take 16—24 months per module. Each module, plus a spare, must be fabricated and tested at full current, 45 kA, and 4 degrees Kelvin, or about minus 269 degrees C, to ensure that the magnets are ready to perform in the superconducting environment of the ITER machine.   The modules will be fabricated with a just-in-time process. As each shipment of conductor is received, it will immediately enter the winding station to be formed into pancakes. The module fabrication process culminates approximately two years later when the module passes final testing and is shipped to France. Everitt added, "Building the central solenoid is all about timing. At any one time, we can have four or five modules moving through the production process."   A central solenoid mock-up module, which will verify the production process, is planned for completion in summer 2015, with sample conductor winding activities beginning in summer 2014.   The mock-up module will be made at 40 percent of the actual ITER module height and will not be superconducting. The mock-up is a way to commission the central solenoid work stations, the insulation method and the overall process. All of the modules are scheduled for completion by February 2019 to meet the international ITER schedule.   Read the rest of the article on US ITER web site.  

From 12 to 14 February the ITER Diagnostics Division hosted a three-day workshop on erosion, deposition, dust, and tritium diagnostics which was attended by about 30 international experts. The aim of the workshop was to define the relevant suite of diagnostics that will be necessary in the ITER machine.   In ITER, the amount of dust and tritium allowed inside the vacuum vessel is limited by the technical prescriptions from the Regulator. Dust is produced either from the gradual erosion of the plasma-facing first wall elements and the re-deposition of this material inside the vacuum vessel, including some tritium, or alternately by transients, like disruptions which can produce dust in a more concentrated way.   The decision to use tungsten instead of carbon as divertor target material has reduced the expected dust production by one to two orders of magnitude, so that the dust accumulation is expected to stay significantly below the limits. The workshop included presentations and discussions on the safety limits; newest modelling and experimental results (mainly from JET's ITER-like wall); and the proposed diagnostics, including worldwide experience with similar systems.   Thirty international experts participated in the workshop aimed at defining the suite of erosion, deposition, dust, and tritium diagnostics that will be necessary in the ITER machine. Measuring overall erosion, the potential source of dust, is the job attributed to the in-vessel viewing system. Dust on the vacuum vessel floor will be examined by endoscopes. Further information will be gleaned by analyzing sampling bins in which dust accumulates. Infrared viewing will allow the identification of dust and deposits on hot surfaces; laser methods will determine the thickness of deposits. Vacuum cleaning combined with mechanical cleaning using the multi purpose deployer (MPD) is an option being considered to manage the dust.   The evaluation of the physics models requires higher resolution from the diagnostics systems than necessary for assuring the conformity with the limits.  For a carbon divertor it had been assumed necessary to measure even during discharges to follow the erosion of the divertor target; with a tungsten divertor, this need has disappeared, which simplifies the diagnostic designs. The main measurement for the tritium amount in the vacuum vessel is provided for by accurate accounting in the Tritium Plant. Supporting in-vessel methods include laser methods and samples.   During the workshop recommendations were also made for useful operations in the non-active phase of ITER. These recommendations include the removal of an entire divertor cassette for detailed investigation, the use of the MPD to sample dust and deposits from inside the vacuum-vessel and the conduction of some gas-fuelling experiments with careful accounting of how much of it is retained in the wall.

It took three generations of physicists to bring fusion research to the point of building ITER. It will take another to bring fusion-produced electricity to the grid and many more to build and operate the fusion plants of the future.   Training the physicists, engineers, lawyers and administrators who will carry out this immense task is one of the major preoccupations of the fusion community.   With this objective in mind, the ITER Organization and Aix-Marseille University signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday 26 January aimed at promoting cooperation and exchanges between both institutions.   "Aix-Marseille University and the ITER Organization have two essential traits in common. Both are young and turned towards the future," said University president Yvon Berland as both parties were preparing to sign the agreement in the ITER Council Chamber.   Although the academic history of Provence goes back to the 15th century, it is only in 2012 that the region's three public universities were federated into a new entity, the Université d'Aix-Marseille.   With an enrollment of 72,000 students in arts and languages, law and political science, economy and management, science and technology, and health, Aix-Marseille University is presently the largest French-speaking university in the world.   "After more than eight years of presence in Provence, ITER now belongs to this region," said ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima at the signature ceremony. "The partnership that we are engaging in today is of special significance to us."   Building on a collaboration that began in 2007 with the organization of the ITER International Summer School, the agreement signed on Wednesday with provide a legal framework for the exchange of young scientists and engineers and the implementation of joint research projects in a number of areas such as fusion science, law and social and human sciences.   "In reality," added DG Motojima, "we will do much more than that. By collaborating to make fusion energy a feature of everyday life, we will strongly contribute to a more peaceful world. I know of very few tasks that could be more meaningful, more rewarding and more worthy of our dedication."

In the latest video released by the European Domestic Agency for ITER, we tour the area of the ITER worksite—the CA2 (for Contractors Area 2)—that will be host to all of the construction companies or consortiums that have been awarded building or power supply installation contracts.   In this 3,500-square-metre zone on the southwest corner of the platform, individual lots have been allocated to the companies for offices, workshops, equipment storage and comfort facilities. The VFR consortium already occupies a three-storey office building—its "command centre" for managing the construction of the Tokamak Complex plus eight other auxiliary buildings including the Assembly Building, whose walls will begin to rise in May/June of this year. Other companies will be moving in soon to create their office complexes.   The CA2 area is also host to a worksite canteen with a capacity to serve 1,500 meals per day, an onsite infirmary that is open 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and offices for the Architect/Engineer ENGAGE and health and safety protection firm Apave.   In 2015, with over 2,000 people working to erect the buildings and facilities that make up the scientific installation, ITER will be one of the busiest construction sites in Europe.   Watch the video here.   Editor's Note: All those who knew Nicolas Robic, Apave's Health and Safety Coordinator for European Domestic Agency activities on the ITER worksite, will be particularly moved by his appearance in this video.

A new series is being broadcast live on the TV screen installed in the lobby of the ITER Headquarters.   Co-produced by CODAC and the ITER Electrical Power Distribution Section the series' script, automatically written in real-time, tells the story of how power consumption on the ITER site and in the Headquarters building varies every few seconds.   Despite the action being a bit repetitive—it's all about coloured graphs rising and falling—the making of the series represents a good example of co-acting between CODAC and the ITER "electricians."   "What you see onscreen is a simple demonstration that we can collect, process and archive signals in accordance to CODAC procedures," explains Anders Wallander, head of ITER Control and Systems Division, and Joël Hourtoule, Electrical Power Distribution section leader.   When construction and assembly activities peak in the coming years, ITER electricity needs will be in the range of 10 to 15 MW—equivalent to those of a small town. The real-time information and the daily and monthly recaps are of crucial importance to support the electrical power network; they will also be very useful when electricity contracts will be negotiated. The data collected, according to Anders, is also "a metric of ITER construction progress."   When construction and assembly activities peak in the coming years, ITER electricity needs will be in the range of 10 to 15 MW—equivalent to those of a small town. The 100 MW mark will be passed when plants systems (such as cryogenics, cooling water, vacuum, building services, heating systems and magnets power supplies) are all "plugged in" to produce steady-state plasmas inside the ITER Tokamak.

In Cadarache, France, the CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra is undergoing a major transformation to be used as a test bench for ITER. This is the WEST project (W - for tungsten - Environment in Steady-state Tokamak). The February issue of the WEST newsletter is now available online.

​Will particle physicists ever have a new toy that will take them to energies beyond those accessible through the Large Hadron Collider? History suggests it's unlikely. To save costs, the LHC was built in an existing tunnel that had hosted an earlier, less powerful accelerator. The US cancelled the construction of hardware that would have outperformed the LHC (the Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC) due to cost overruns, and it shut down its Tevatron once the LHC started up. Now, decisions on the linear collider that will be used to study the Higgs in detail are being made based on which country is likely to come up with the most money. But physicists are apparently an optimistic bunch. Earlier this year, CERN announced that it was beginning to evaluate an LHC replacement that would require a tunnel so large—100km in circumference—that it would have to pass under Lake Geneva itself. Potentially in response, a team of US-based physicists have come up with an even more audacious plan: don't build the linear collider, resurrect the SSC's now abandoned tunnels, and use them to both host a Higgs factory and as a booster for a truly massive, 270km collider.   Read the full article on Ars Technica website.  

The February 2014 issue of the US ITER News Update is now available online. The newsletter highlights the recent progress in the ITER systems under US responsibility (pellet injection system,tokamak cooling water system, central solenoid magnet, etc.) and relates the very solid budget situation for fiscal year 2014. You can read the latest news from US ITER here.