Join the audience for a live webinar at 3 p.m. CET on 16 December 2021, sponsored by New England Wire Technologies, RadiaSoft LLC and Agilent Technologies. Registration on the CERN Courier website.
The webinar, presented by Neil Mitchell, will summarise the present status of manufacturing and assembly of ITER's large magnet components, which have started arriving on site. Neil will chose three areas, critical to magnet and tokamak performance, to describe in more detail:
1. Development of Nb3Sn strands for fusion applications started in the 1980s and the selection of the material for the Toroidal and Central Solenoid Coils in the first phase of ITER 1988–1991 was a key driver of the overall tokamak parameters. The development, qualification and procurement, both before and after the decision to use it, gives us an unusual opportunity to look at the implementation of a novel technology in its entirety, with the expected and unexpected problems we encountered and how they were solved – or tolerated.
2. High-voltage insulation in superconducting magnets is a frequently overlooked area that demands many new technologies. It is the area in the ITER magnets that has created the most quality issues on magnet acceptance and is clearly an area where more engineering attention is required.
3. The need for improvements in overall integration of the magnets into the tokamak, and in particular maintainability and repairability, is being demonstrated as we assemble components into the cryostat. The assembly is proceeding well in terms of quality but at the same time, the complexity shows that for a nuclear power plant, we need improvements.