Today's success is a good example of the effectiveness of international integration in promoting major scientific and technological research projects. The technical teams have just completed the assembly of the JT-60SA tokamak - magnets, vacuum vessel, electrical and thermal equipment - in Naka on 30 March 2020.
This project, carried out in partnership between Europe and Japan, aims in a first step at preparing the start-up of its big brother ITER.
The CEA, in charge of the French government's obligations under the Broader Approach agreement, provided around 50% of the European contribution in values, in its areas of excellence: the development, manufacturing, monitoring, testing and implementation of large superconducting magnets and their cryogenic system - mainly with the support of the French industry.
This milestone was achieved thanks to the mobilization of the Japanese colleagues, associated with the
F4E assembly team, who managed to keep the final JT-60SA assembly schedule one day ahead.
From now on, the commissioning phase of JT-60SA will be able to start at the beginning of April with the objective of carrying out the first physics experiments during September 2020. The CEA remains mobilized to support the research program that will be conducted on JT-60SA.
The IRIG/DSBT and IRFM/STEP teams have contributed to this project since 2007 by being responsible for the supply of the tokamak's cryogenic system. After a design phase and R&D activities on IRIG/D-SBT's Helios experimental loop (
read more), the team members specified the cryogenic requirements, followed-up the manufacturing in Europe, the installation and the acceptance tests in Naka, Japan with the company Air Liquide Advanced Technologies. The transfer of ownership to our colleagues F4E and then to
QST took place in December 2016 (
read more). Since then, the IRIG/DSBT has carried on the collaboration on the project and it will be part of the European team from France but also in Japan, to follow the reception of the Tokamak, in order to support our Japanese colleagues towards the first plasma scheduled for September 2020.
Fusion for Energy (F4E) is the European Union's Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy.
QST: National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology in Japan