“When we began the initial design work, there was significant concern over whether we could make each tie plate as a single piece,” Freudenberg said. “These pieces are 50 feet long and must be incredibly straight, meeting strict tolerances. We worked with forging shops and specialized engineering companies to achieve this, changing our initial design from a two-piece concept to a single piece.”
Another challenge was fastening the structure components together sufficiently to withstand the extreme force that the central solenoid will generate. This led the team to turn to a U.S. company that had developed what is known as Superbolt® technology.
With four of the central solenoid modules now in place, and the final two expected to be stacked this year, the team is looking forward to the next phase of construction of the support cage at the ITER site in southern France.
“The real reward for the team will be watching the structure be assembled around the central solenoid, seeing their more than a decade of work coming to fruition and knowing we are one step closer to ITER operations,” said Freudenberg.
U.S. contributions to ITER are sponsored by the US Department of Energy Office of Science and managed by UT-Battelle at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, with contributions by partner labs Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory. For more information, see https://usiter.org. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit https://science.energy.gov.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science. — Amy Reed
This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Last delivery of central solenoid structure arrives at ITER" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news
