China’s 1st ITER Procurement Agreement completed

count： [2016-01-19] [Close]

China’s first ITER Procurement Agreement--Troidal Field (TF) Coil conductor procurement is completed, a ceremony was held at 9 a.m., Dec. 18th, to mark the completion at ASIPP in Hefei, China.

On August 14th, 2011, as China’s first ITER component, TF coil conductor was started. After manufacture process, all 6 TF conductors provided by China passed SULTAN test at once with good and stable performance. On Nov. 28th, 2015, the last TF coil conductor manufacture was completed.

The successful completion of this 100%-domestic-made task is an important milestone for China’s participation in ITER, which certifies again that China’s Large-scale superconducting conductor development and industrialized production capacity has reached the international first-class level. Toroidal Field (TF) conductor package is 100% made in China, and the quality of all the products meets the requirement.

As a critical component of ITER, the magnet system includes 18 TF coils. TF conductor procurement, consisting of 13 conductors, is the first ITER procurement taken on and launched in China. Because of its high technology all parts raced for TF procurement at the beginning of the negotiation. Among ITER’s 137 procurements, it is the only procurement whose components are provided by ITER’s six partners (EU, US, Japan, Korea, Russia and China).

Each TF coil is made up of 5 regular Double Pancakes (rDP) and 2 side Double Pancakes (sDP), and each Double Pancake is wound from a single piece length of Nb3Sn-based Cable-In-Conduit Conductor (CICC). The minimum length of a regular Double Pancake unit is 760 m; the minimum length of a side Double Pancake unit is 415 m. To manufacture 18 TF conductors, 90 rDP unit lengths and 36 sDP unit lengths need to be fabricated. With liquid helium of 4.2K（-269℃）flowing inside, rated current at 68kA, TF conductor’s Max Magnetic Strength reaches 20T

Through cooperation with domestic partners, Applied Superconductivity Division of ASIPP developed TF conductor manufacturing technology, completed the industrial production certification, established a quality management and process control system which meets ITER’s requirement and completed the research and development of manufacture technology and facility， test and quality evaluation.

China’s former vice minister of Science and Technology and director of China Domestic Agency, CAO Jianlin and ITER’s Superconductor Systems & Auxiliaries Section Leader, Arnaud DEVRED attended the ceremony, which was organized by ASIPP and sponsored by CNDA. (WU Qiaochu reports)