US ITER and supplier General Atomics have finished testing the sixth and final module required for the 60-foot-tall superconducting magnet at the heart of ITER.
Each cylindrical module is wound from ~3.5 miles of niobium-tin superconducting cable supplied by ITER Japan, with more than two years of precision fabrication and verification required. The final phase, in-factory testing, verifies performance by simulating conditions that the module will experience during operation at ITER.
The sixth production module, which is the last module required to complete the central solenoid stack, was subjected to a series of demanding tests including helium leak testing, high voltage insulation testing, cooldown to 4.5 K and charging to 48.5 kA followed by a series of tests designed to measure as-built performance of the superconductor.
Four central solenoid modules have already been delivered by US ITER and stacked on a dedicated assembly platform. The fifth is en route and this sixth module will ship during summer. The seventh module, to be used as a spare, remains to be finalized.
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