The delivery of the first-ever European components to ITER has qualified as one of the key moments of the project carrying tremendous symbolic importance. It has been a turning point for Europe, the party with the largest contribution to the biggest scientific collaboration in the field of energy, paving the way for many more components to come. 

To capture history in the making we filmed the arrival of the six water detritiation tanks that will be part of the ITER fuel cycle system. The contract awarded to Ensa builds on the expertise of Empresarios Agrupados and GEA as subcontractors. It has taken roughly 20 months for the six tanks to be designed and manufactured, whose cost has been in the range of 2 million EUR. 

We interviewed representatives of F4E and Ensa, the Spanish company responsible for the design and manufacturing of the components, in order to learn more about the manufacturing process and their function in the machine. Alain Teissier, F4E’s Head for the ITER Cryoplant and Fuel Cycle, explains the importance of this achievement giving us some details about the works that have been carried out. Giovanni Piazza, F4E’s Technical Officer for the Tritium Plant, explains the process of the fusion reaction and role of the tanks during the fuel recovery phase. Josep Benet, F4E’s Technical Officer for the Tritium Plant, shows us the tanks and enters into more details about their dimensions and tolerances. On behalf of the contractors, David de Francisco, Ensa Project Engineer, elaborates on the technical challenges they faced and the importance of contributing to a project like ITER. 

Source: F4E

Sustainable nuclear fusion has long been a dream for most scientists and energy experts alike. Clean, abundant, and economical, there have been many attempts to make it workable. Now, researchers at the University of Washington have stepped up their existing involvement in the fusion field with a $5.3 million Department of Energy grant to scale up their “Sheared Flow Stabilized Z-Pinch” fusion device. 

Uri Shumlak, a professor in the department of aeronautics and astronautics, co-leads the project and explained that the Z-Pinch technique is smaller and cheaper than more conventional magnetic field coil-driven reactors. “The large size of the magnetic field coils drives up the cost,” he said. “In Z-Pinch, the plasma column is quite small. In order to get fusion, you scale up in the opposite direction, and get smaller.” 

The small size and relative inexpensiveness helps in its possible applications, which can be both terrestrial and celestial. “The real interest of mine is in space propulsion,” he said. “Because it is a linear device, it fits better into a spacecraft.” 

Michal Hughes, a fifth-year graduate student who has been working in the Z-Pinch lab, elaborates on the uses of the technique. “We can use this device both as a power plant and as propulsion,” he said. “That makes it easier to fly the mission and is potentially much more powerful than solar panels.”

However, there are problems to be overcome, chiefly the instability of the plasma. “The real challenge has been to find a configuration that is stable,” Shumlak said. 

The team plans to build a new Z-Pinch device, which will be ready by summer 2016. It will be the third machine they’re building. “We built three machines,” said Elliot Claveau, a graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics who joined the lab in 2014. “The first was 16 years ago. Last year, we got the second machine.” He said the third machine will be 10 times as powerful as the present one and the lab will be running two machines at the same time.

This more powerful machine will be useful in giving the researchers a better understanding of what they’re studying. “For the second machine, we went past a million degrees,” Hughes said. “For the third machine, we’re looking to reach even higher temperatures, which will help us investigate different responses of the plasma.”

There have been a number of graduate and undergraduate students who have worked in the lab, including Hughes, who has been involved for six years. Shumlak is appreciative of the students’ contribution to the project. “This research has been made possible by dedicated undergraduate and graduate students,” he said. “There have been many students who’ve made significant contributions.” 

The professor and the students are cautiously optimistic about the prospects of the research and its potential massive impact. “If everything turns out as expected, we should be able to get to a viable fusion reactor ready for commercial scale in 10-15 years,” Shumlak said. 

The students are less reserved about the potential of the project. “The goal we have is the advancement of this field in general, because eventually if everything succeeds, the research is the first step in developing a cheap fusion reactor,” Claveau said. “This is potentially world changing, but we’re not there yet.”  

Source: The Daily of the University of Washington

The transformers that have been designed by F4E, procured by the US Domestic Agency (DA) and manufactured by Hyundai Heavy Industry, have reached the ITER site. Qualified as Heavy Exceptional Loads (HEL), the two pieces of equipment have been delivered by DAHER, the exclusive logistics provider for HELs, raising the total number of components transferred so far with this protocol to six. F4E has already started with the assembly and once completed, the equipment will be handed over to ITER International Organization (IO). 

The design process started in 2009 in close collaboration with ITER IO, the US DA, F4E and its contractors- Energhia, Engage and Apave. The equipment has been delivered near the 400 kV network, where F4E has been responsible for the infrastructure works under the supervision of Ferrovial.   The contractor has been constructing four oil retention pits measuring 100 m² and 70m³ each to collect any possible leakage of the oil from the transformers. Through the second contract, four 400 kV transformers for the steady state electrical network will be positioned, assembled, tested and commissioned. Three additional transformers will be installed in the northern part of this area and all of them will be connected to the grid. 

A power of 1200 MVA will run through the ITER electrical system using a Pulsed Power Electrical Network (PPEN) and a Steady-State Electrical Network (SSEN). For example, the AC/DC converters, the Heating and Current Drive systems, and the Reactive Power Compensation will be supplied through the PPEN, whose high voltage components will come from China. Thanks to this electrical network, the ITER plasma will be heated and the powerful superconductive magnets will operate in order to confine it. Meanwhile, the major consumers of the SSEN, whose high voltage components will come from the US, will supply with power the cryogenic and cooling water systems, the tritium plant and the general infrastructures. This network will provide the power needed to generate the low temperatures for some of the components in the machine.

A series of studies will be carried out regarding the different infrastructure works for the foundations of the electrical components, the precipitation drainage systems and the earthing grid system, the lighting and fences to be installed. Once the electrical assembly of the other components is in place the works for the entire high voltage electrical substation will be considered completed.

The installation of all other components in order to connect the transformers to the 400 kV network, and the construction of the building that will house the 22 kV switchgear on the site, are planned for mid-2016.

Source: F4E

Europe, the biggest shareholder out of the seven parties contributing to ITER, the largest international scientific collaboration in the field of energy bringing together 80% of the global GDP and 50% of the world’s population, has celebrated a symbolic milestone with the arrival of its first-ever piece of equipment to the project’s seat in Cadarache, south of France.

Fusion for Energy and Ensa, a Spanish company responsible for the design and manufacturing of six tanks that will be part of the fusion reactor’s fuel cycle system, have made history the moment the equipment crossed the gates of ITER. The European contribution to ITER is in the range of 50%. In other words, Europe’s industry, SMEs and laboratories will have the opportunity to develop and manufacture almost half of the components required through the contracts launched by F4E. Currently, Europe has signed more than 400 contracts reaching a cumulative value of 3 billion EUR with more than 250 companies and 50 laboratories.  

The contract awarded to Ensa builds on the expertise of Empresarios Agrupados and GEA as subcontractors. It has taken roughly 20 months for the six tanks to be designed and manufactured, whose cost is in the range of 2 million EUR. Pietro Barabaschi, F4E’s Acting Director, explained that “the arrival of this equipment marks the beginning of a long list of components that we, as Europeans, have the duty to manufacture and deliver to ITER-the biggest fusion energy project”. Rafael Triviño, Ensa’s Managing Director, stated that “ITER is an impressive technological project and it has been a great honour to be the first European company supplying the first components”.   

The scope of the contract

The six large-sized tanks are part of ITER’s water detritiation system. When ITER starts operating, the purpose of these tanks will be to collect the water containing tritium in order to recover it and subsequently use it in future fusion reactions. Four tanks, weighing approximately 5 tonnes and measuring 20m3 each, will be part of this system. Two bigger tanks, weighing approximately 20 tonnes and measuring 100m3 each, will be used for the tritium recovery phase in exceptional circumstances. The six tanks will be initially kept at a safe area, and once the Tritium plant is ready, they will be installed in the building. Ensa had to comply with a series of stringent safety and quality requirements that apply to ITER components.   

The role of the water detritiation system

To get fusion going two hydrogen isotopes- deuterium and tritium- need to collide at extremely high temperatures reaching 150 million ˚C. According to the sequence of actions of the ITER fuel cycle, the two hydrogen isotopes will be supplied in the machine through the Tritium plant. The two isotopes will travel through the pipes of the system to reach the core of the machine and fuse to release energy. What is left from the fuel of the fusion reaction, together with other gases produced, will return through pumps to the Tritium plant in order to recover the tritium and use it to start all over a new series of fusion reactions.  

Source: F4E