World’s largest tokamak cools 330-ton superconducting magnet for fusion plasma

Engineers are preparing for high-current trials at ITER’s newly activated Magnet Cold Test Facility, following a 12-day cooling process that lowered a 330-ton toroidal field coil to its functioning temperature of 4 Kelvin (minus 269 degrees Celsius). This operational milestone was celebrated yesterday during a site visit by the ITER Council’s Management Advisory Committee.

World’s largest tokamak cools 330-ton superconducting magnet for fusion plasma. Engineers are preparing for high-current trials at ITER’s newly activated Magnet Cold Test Facility, following a 12-day cooling process that lowered a 330-ton toroidal field coil to its functioning temperature of 4 Kelvin (minus 269 degrees Celsius). This operational milestone was celebrated yesterday during a site visit by the ITER Council’s Management Advisory Committee. This program verifies magnet performance before the parts are locked into the main reactor. Over the course of four to six months per coil, the team will subject components to full operational electrical currents, which reach 68 kiloamperes (kA) for the toroidal field units and 48 kA for the poloidal field units. “Eighteen D-shaped toroidal field coils, six ring-shaped poloidal field coils,...