F4E at MT-22

The 22^nd International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-22) took place between the 12-16September in Marseille, France. Just like a magnet, the major biennial event attracted more than 950 scientists, engineers and companies working in this field with particular focus on accelerators, materials and conductors, fusion magnets, pulsed magnets and their measurement and instrumentation. This year’s conference was an opportunity to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity and 50 years of know-how in the field of applied superconductivity.

Among the different subjects that were addressed, fusion emerged as one of the main topics of interest. Early on Monday morning the conference opened in a packed auditorium with a presentation from Professor Osamu Motojima, DG of the ITER International Organization, reporting on the status of the ITER project, its construction and the manufacturing of components together with the technical challenges that engineers and industry are currently trying to solve across the seven ITER parties. A guided tour on the ITER site was also organised in order to give conference participants the possibility to see for themselves the progress of the biggest international research collaboration in the field of energy.

F4E occupied one of the central stands of the exhibition in order to liaise with many different interested parties and communicate Europe’s contribution to ITER through bilateral meetings, publications, flyers specifically prepared for the conference and short films documenting the progress of construction. In parallel, the F4E task force attending the event, reported on a series of topics through presentations and poster sessions.

Hannu Rajainmaki co-chaired the session on ITER and the JT-60SA magnet procurement where Alessandro Bonito-Oliva, as invited speaker, presented the status of the F4E Toroidal Field (TF) coils procurement and Louis Zani offered an update on the manufacturing of the strand and conductor for JT-60SA. In the course of the week, Boris Bellesia explained the steps taken by F4E towards the procurement of cold test and case insertion of the ITER TF coils. Sam Davis summarised the design features and proposed procedure that will allow the JT-60SA TF coils to be accurately assembled on site. The presentations on the progress of the Broader Approach concluded with Tomarchio Valerio who offered an update on the status of the global structural and electromagnetic finite elements models of the JT-60SA magnet system.

A paper on the magnetically based acceptance procedures for the ITER Toroidal Coils was presented by Pietro Testoni offering an assessment of the mathematical tools to perform the final evaluation. Alessandro Bonito-Oliva co-chaired the fusion magnet fabrication posters session where Robert Harrison presented the progress of the ITER TF coil winding pack and Eva Boter together with Marc Cornelis reported on the status of the ITER TF coil radial plate prototypes. Alfredo Portone offered an updated on the state of play of the EDIPO project and presented an outlook.

F4E also participated in the MT-22 heavy components exhibition.

In collaboration with SIMIC and CNIM,  the two radial plate mock-ups were unveiled and offered an opportunity to learn more on how radial plates will operate in the ITER device and how they will be manufactured. Both exhibits attracted a lot of attention due to the buzz made in the different information sessions and their strategic position at the entrance of the conference centre.