F4E Director visits Korea

The visit of the F4E Director, Johannes Schwemmer, on invitation by Ki-Jung Jung, Head of the Korean ITER Domestic Agency (KODA) included meetings at KODA in Daejeon, South Korea, where individual and joint F4E-KODA ITER projects were discussed. The Director was impressed by KSTAR, or Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research, the magnetic fusion device being built at the Korean National Fusion Research Institute. KSTAR is one of the first research tokamaks in the world to feature fully superconducting magnets and is intended to study aspects of magnetic fusion energy which will be pertinent to ITER.

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), headquartered in Ulsan, South Korea, has been entrusted to deliver four of ITER’s Vacuum Vessel sectors and the F4E Director travelled there in order to witness the progress being made and to personally deliver the message that F4E is counting on their speed and efficiency for the completion of the Vacuum Vessel. Indeed, the material handover for sectors 7 and 8 from the European consortium AMW to HHI is very near conclusion. He agreed with Cheul-Ho Park, COO of the Industrial Plant & Engineering Division and Senior Executive Vice President of HHI, that HHI is ready to co-operate closely with AMW and exchange the knowledge and experience with the challenging fabrication of the complex Vacuum Vessel openly.

The Director’s meetings in Korea exemplify the international nature of the ITER project and show the close and open collaboration between its partners and stakeholders. With the personal high-level contacts firmly strengthened thanks to this trip, the Director facilitates for F4E in the future.