The massive girders of the Assembly Hall cranes have arrived at the ITER site

The 64 metre long convoy carrying one of the two girders of the Assembly Hall cranes has made it to the ITER site. It has been a long trip for this metallic structure since it left the workshop of the NKMNOELL-REEL consortium towards the end of February. Due to its impressive size, and weight of roughly 200 tonnes, special arrangements had to be made. In fact, it is considered as the biggest convoy to date and it happens to be Europe’s first-ever heavy exceptional equipment to ITER. DAHER, responsible for the logistics and transportation of ITER components, undertook this mission impossible and made it possible.

The best way to visualise the size of the convoy is to imagine 15 medium-size cars driving slowly at 2-5 km/hour at night, so as not to disturb the local community, following a specific route of 104 km meticulously adapted by the French authorities. The delivery of the two girders has unfolded during two weeks because they had to be transported one at a time. With both girders now on site another milestone in the area of buildings and infrastructure, managed by F4E and ITER International Organization, has been accomplished.

Each of the two girders is more than 46 metres in length with overall cross dimensions of about 4 x 3.5 metres. Think of the girders as the shoulders of the electric cranes that will travel between the Assembly Hall and the Tokamak building. The heaviest components will be lifted by two 750 tonne cranes. When working in tandem they will be able to lift 1 500 tonnes, which is approximately the weight of four Boeing 747 aircrafts.

With respect to the trolleys, once their assembly is completed, and have undergone factory tests, they will be delivered on site by the end of April. Meanwhile, the spectacular lifting 60 metres above the ground of the equipment and cabling making up the cranes is foreseen to take place in June.

To view more images of the of the transportation of the girders click here.