Vacuum Vessel consortium reinforced by ENSA in delivering EU contribution

Spanish company Equipos Nucleares SA (ENSA) has joined the AMW consortium in delivering F4E’s contribution to the ITER Vacuum Vessel.  As a supplier to AMW (consisting of companies Ansaldo Nucleare S.p.A, Mangiarotti S.p.A and Walter Tosto S.p.A),  ENSA will manufacture three segments, the poloidal segment number 1 for vacuum vessel sectors 3, 2 and 9. “By increasing the capacity of the consortium with ENSA, a company with significant experience in the nuclear field, we gain confidence to receive this critical component according to the ITER project delivery needs”, says Francesco Zacchia, Project Manager for F4E’s Vacuum Vessel Team. To kick-off this new collaboration, a meeting was held in July at ENSA premises between members the AMW consortium, including its new subcontractor ENSA, and the Vacuum Vessel Integrated Project Team (consisting of representatives from F4E and ITER IO). 

The fabrication of the poloidal segment involves a combination of high precision machining and welding, using different technologies including arc welding and electron beam welding. The highest challenge is to obtain a segment within the requested tight tolerances, considering that this is a first-of-a-kind component. The delivery of the first poloidal segment is foreseen for the second half of 2018.

The ITER experiment will take place inside the vacuum vessel, a hermetically-sealed steel container, consisting of nice “D” shaped sectors, that houses the fusion reaction. In its doughnut-shaped chamber, or torus, the plasma particles will spiral around continuously without touching the walls. With an interior volume of 1,600 m³, the ITER Vacuum Vessel will contain a plasma volume (840 m³), which is ten times larger than that of the largest operating tokamak in the world today. It will have an outer diameter of 19.4 metres and an inner diameter of 6.4 metres, as well as measuring 11.4 metres high, and weighing approximately 5,200 tonnes which is equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower.