Indian company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Ltd has won the contract to manufacture the 3800 tonne cryostat for the ITER experimental fusion reactor, currently under construction in Southern France.
The cryostat, which will be made of stainless steel, will be the largest high-vacuum pressure chamber ever built, according to the ITER organisation. It forms the vacuum-tight container surrounding the ITER vacuum vessel and its superconducting magnets.
The structure's overall dimensions will be 29.4 metres in diameter by 29 metres in height, and it will be maintaining a vacuum of 0.1 mPa. It will incorporate 23 penetrations allowing internal access for maintenance, as well as over 200 penetrations—some as large as four metres - providing access for the cooling systems, magnet feeders, auxiliary heating, diagnostics, and the removal of blanket and parts of the divertor.
The structure will be manufactured by the Heavy Engineering division of L&T at its Hazira plant, near Surat in Western India, in the state of Gujarat. It will be dispatched in 54 modules to the ITER site in Cadarache, as it cannot be transported in one piece. Pre-assembly of the cryostat modules will be carried out in a temporary workshop at the ITER site and then transported to the tokamak pit where they will be welded together using the advanced “narrow groove all position gas tungsten arc welding" technique.
Linkedin
