Manufacturing for the world's largest single-platform cryogenic plant is progressing, with a series of factory acceptance milestones successfully passed (or imminent) and the first completed components expected on site next month. Three parties are sharing responsibility for the procurement of the ITER cryoplant—the ITER Organization, responsible for the liquid helium plant; Europe, in charge of the liquid nitrogen plant and auxiliary systems; and India, whose contractors are procuring the cryolines, the warm lines and cryodistribution components. Europe is also building the 5,400-m² facility that will house the cryoplant on the ITER site. Within the frame of industrial contracts signed for the procurement of each package, hundreds of components are currently in late-stage design or fabrication phases. Beginning next month, deliveries will be converging on ITER from factories in Turkey, India, China, Sweden, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Japan, and various points in France ... some 450 shipments in all. The Cryogenic Project Team expects fully 90 percent of plant components on site by the end of the year, to be stored until the building and technical areas become available for the start of installation activities. Among recent fabrication milestones, the European Domestic Agency has reported successful factory acceptance tests (FAT) for 85-tonne nitrogen compressors and a series of turbines, while two out of the three cold boxes for the liquid helium plant under ITER Organization procurement are fully equipped and ready for transport. All three of the 137-tonne liquid helium plant cold boxes are expected on site in November. The cryoplant is composed of helium and nitrogen refrigerators combined with a 80 K helium loop. Storage and recovery of the helium inventory (25 tonnes) is provided in warm and cold (4 K and 80 K) gaseous helium tanks. Three helium refrigerators supply the required cooling power via an interconnection box providing the interface to the cryodistribution system. Two nitrogen refrigerators provide cooling power for the thermal shields and the 80 K pre-cooling of the helium refrigerators. The ITER cryogenic system will be capable of providing cooling power at three different temperature levels: 4 K, 50K and 80K. A number of unique features will guarantee stable and flexible operation despite unprecedented dynamic heat loads caused by magnetic field variations and fusion neutrons. The plant is also designed to operate over a wide range of ITER plasma scenarios, from short plasma pulses (a few hundred seconds) with 700 MW of fusion power to long plasma pulses of 3,000 seconds with 365 MW of fusion power. In the build up to the machine's First Plasma, the cryoplant will provide the gradual cooldown and fill of the magnets and thermal shields and the cooldown of the cryopumps that are used to achieve vacuum in the cryostat and vacuum vessel. Scroll through the gallery below to see images of cryoplant manufacturing. (Photos courtesy of Eric Dupasquier, Air Liquide, unless otherwise indicated.)

The helicopter made a banking pass over the ITER site, then another, and another, as the Prince took in the vista of substantial construction progress made since his last visit. At precisely 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 21 September, the helicopter of His Serene Highness, Prince Albert II of Monaco, touched down at the Château de Cadarache, beginning a visit that would reintroduce him to the reinvigorated ITER Project and underscore the benefits of the Monaco-ITER partnership. The day was full of highlights. In a symbolic nod to the history of fusion, the group was able to connect via live link with GOLEM—the world's oldest tokamak still in operation, now housed in a research facility in downtown Prague. After the temperature, pressure, and power parameters had been set, the Prince watched as a plasma pulse was generated and, a few minutes later, the data results appeared onscreen. Each pulse is individually named; GOLEM now proudly bears a 10 millisecond 'SAS Prince Albert II' on its record books. ITER Communication also used the occasion to demonstrate for the Prince a new virtual tour under development. Using this web-based tool, ITER stakeholders such as Monaco will be able to keep abreast of construction progress. The virtual tour features immersive 360° drone videos at dozens of points on the worksite, which will be updated every few months. The site tour itself was a high point. The group made its first stop at the winding facility where qualification activities are underway on the production line for poloidal field coils 2 and 5. H.S.H. Prince Albert II took the opportunity to see first-hand the weight and dimensions of the niobium-titanium cable-in-conduit that will be wound into these ITER magnets. Next up was the Cryostat Workshop, where the Prince climbed a platform to view the complex 'over-and-under' welding operation underway on the cryostat base. At the Assembly Hall, Director-General Bigot explained the sequential array of purpose-made tools for assembling the immense components into a functional machine. At the final stop, overlooking the Tokamak Pit, the ITER Director-General and H.S.H. Prince Albert II gave a brief interview to Monaco TV, which can be viewed here. Perhaps surpassing all parts of the Prince's was his meeting with ITER's Monaco Fellows: post-doctoral students whose research at ITER is funded by Monaco's generosity. Four of the current fellows briefly presented their areas of scholarship, from plasma control and tokamak structural monitoring to the SOLPS simulation code and the behaviour of tungsten under high heat flux. The meeting included numerous fellows from previous years, who have gone on to become ITER engineers and scientists. Both the Director-General and the Prince reflected on the important role of the Monaco-ITER partnership in creating the next generation of ITER leaders.

The Srednenevsky facility layout is favourable to manufacturing ultra-large components for later shipment. Situated on the Neva River near St Petersburg, the shipyard enjoys direct access to the Baltic Sea and global shipping routes. Still, when manufacturing a component as large as ITER's poloidal field coil #1 (PF1)—200-tonnes when completed—there remains a not-insignificant engineering challenge: how to transfer this massive component from the construction hall to the transport ship. An obvious solution—but highly expensive—would be to construct a giant crane for this purpose. The Srednenevsky team came up with a more creative strategy. Most of the multi-stage assembly platform for the PF1 coil fabrication process has been erected atop a stationary barge. This includes the vacuum pressure impregnation of each of the 'double pancake' sections with epoxy resin, as well as the assembly of the double pancakes into the finished coil. When the PF1 coil is complete, it will be lowered to a 45-degree angle for stability. The barge will then be tugged backward out of the construction hall and into the Neva River. There the coil and its platform will be transferred to a ship to begin their long journey 'homeward.' Thus a humble barge—aptly re-christened ИТЭР 2016, or ITER 2016—has become part of the engineering sophistication that is the ITER Project.

The typical pipe is made from a steel plate that is rolled to form a tube, and welded along its length. The nuclear world, however, is not fond of long welds ... especially in piping. Because pipes are often located in places difficult to access, the regular inspections and radiographic examination that safety regulations require would be a taxing and extremely expensive process. There would also be an increased risk of leaks not being detected by normal methods of non-destructive testing. What the nuclear world prefers is the so-called seamless pipe—a pipe that is manufactured not by rolling and welding a flat surface, but by piercing and extruding a billet of hot metal to form a tube. Such pipes come in standard lengths of 5 to 7 metres that are welded together to form networks, allowing for fewer, and more accessible, welds. In ITER, this type of seamless pipe will be required for a 10-kilometre network that will connect powerful vacuum pumps to the vacuum vessel, cryostat, and neutral beam injector. This piping will act as an extension of the first nuclear confinement barrier, transporting the unburned tritium (along with ash and impurities) from the vacuum vessel and delivering it to the Tritium Plant for reprocessing. The first order of seamless stainless-steel piping was delivered to ITER on 16 September, procured by the ITER Organization on behalf of the US under the terms of a specific agreement to centralize the procurement of vacuum pipework. The pipes were manufactured in Austria for the company Global Nuclear Metal Supply (GNMS). 'Our first order of seamless pipes for the vacuum system was deliberately small—only 80 metres,' explain Liam Worth and Bansal Gourab, from the ITER Vacuum Section. 'We'll use this first order as a test to verify that all procedures are observed and secured, before ordering the remaining scope (in three deliveries) from the supplier for arrival in 2017.' The Vacuum Section is pursuing the standardization of vacuum components, including piping and vacuum instrumentation, as a way for the ITER Organization and Domestic Agencies to save cost on the qualification and order of mass-purchase items.

Prof. Stewart Prager, a world-renowned plasma physicist and passionate voice for a future of clean, abundant and benign energy fueled by fusion, has stepped down from the directorship of the national laboratory he has headed for the last eight years. [...] Prager, the sixth director in the 65-year history of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), joined the lab in the fall of 2008 after a long career at the University of Wisconsin. A pioneer in plasma physics, he is internationally known for experiments that contribute to the fundamental knowledge of fusion energy and the design of devices that will produce it. Read the full article on the PPPL website.

The last shipment of cryostat base segments (three segments/120 tonnes each) left Hazira, India on 2 September. Prior to being shipped, on 16 August, a flag-off ceremony was held at the Larsen & Toubro Ltd plant, where the cryostat segments are being manufactured. With this shipment, due to reach France after a month-long sea journey, India has completed shipment of all major pieces of the cryostat base (tier-1 and tier-2). Welding operations for Tier 1 of the cryostat base have already begun on the ITER site.