ITER – Designing one-of-a-kind components
ITER Newsline – Designing one-of-a-kind components
By Sabina Griffith | 24 February 2012
After three solid days reviewing the design of one of the most critical elements of the tokamak’s power supply system—the switching networks for ITER’s coil power supplies and the fast discharge units that will protect the superconducting coils in case of a quench—Chairman Charles Neumeyer from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory looks tired but satisfied. More than 60 participants including experts from Russia, Korea and China had convened at the ITER Headquarters for the meeting. The largest delegation with 17 engineers had flown in from Russia to present their work in person.
“The Russian Domestic Agency’s contributions that were presented at this Preliminary Design Review are critical elements of the ITER power supply system,” said Neumeyer. “In particular, the high current switches used for the Switching Network Units (SNU) and Fast Discharge Units (FDU) are unique, one-of-a-kind components, available only from the Efremov Institute in St. Petersburg, which has mastered this technology over several decades of development.”
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