A Record Assembly

The nuclear fusion reactor at ITER gets back on track

A recent transfer of a sector module to a particular assembly pit (described in the next paragraph) at the ITER site in France was many things in one. Hailed as a “record performance” by ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi, considered a “top-level achievement” by the head of the Construction Project Sergio Orlandi, the operation concentrated most of the challenges ITER must face and overcome during the machine assembly phase.

The assembly pit in question is defined as a "tokamak". A tokamak is a device used in nuclear-fusion research for magnetic confinement of plasma. It uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The plasma is confined in a hollow, doughnut-shaped container using a complex system of magnetic fields. Scientists believe that tokamaks are the leading plasma confinement concept for future fusion power plants.

The module itself, one of the nine “building blocks” that will, once assembled and welded, form the tokamak’s doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel, is a unique technological object. As tall as a five-story building and as heavy as four fully loaded jumbo jets, it is a complex assembly of first-of-a-kind components procured by three different ITER Members: Korea for the vacuum vessel sector at the module’s core as well as the thermal panels that contribute to its insulation, and Europe and Japan for the pair of toroidal field coils that complete the assembly.