On March 1st, according to the official WeChat account of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the world's largest "artificial sun" international thermonuclear fusion experimental reactor (ITER) organization and the Sino French consortium led by CNNC Engineering have officially signed a vacuum chamber module assembly contract.
After successfully installing its heart equipment, China is once again undertaking the installation task of its core equipment.
The assembly of vacuum chamber modules is currently the most important equipment in the critical path of the ITER project, playing a crucial role in the success of the entire ITER project.
The vacuum chamber is shaped like a donut, but due to its huge size, it is divided into 9 vacuum chamber modules for easy installation. However, the vacuum chamber modules themselves are also a three-layer sandwich structure, consisting of a 40 degree vacuum chamber fan section, a vacuum chamber cold screen, and a circumferential field coil from the inside out.
The assembly work of the vacuum chamber module awarded this bid is to integrate the cold screen and circumferential field coil of the vacuum chamber into the fan section of the vacuum chamber in the assembly hall, just like wearing clothes, and then lift them as a whole into the Tokamak pit. The vacuum chamber module consists of 9 sectors, which will be completed and delivered separately. The total planned installation period for these 9 sectors is 35 months.
It is reported that the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor Program aims to simulate the nuclear fusion process of solar radiation and heat generation, and explore the commercial feasibility of controlled nuclear fusion technology.
The International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor is a tokamak capable of producing large-scale nuclear fusion reactions, known as the world's largest "artificial sun", jointly implemented by China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States.