The high-tech magnet manufactured with the contribution of F4E and its industrial partners. (© F4E)The first of 18 toroidal field (TF) coils for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a major international project to build a 500 MW tokamak fusion device, has been manufactured in Europe.

The superconducting magnet is 14 m wide, 9 m high, and weighs 110 tons. The coils will create a powerful magnetic cage to entrap the fusion fuel which is expected to reach 150 million ° Celsius. When powered with 68 000 A, the ITER TF coils will generate a magnetic field that will reach 11.8 Tesla — about 1 million times stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth.

Nine of the TF coils, plus a spare, are being produced in Europe; the other nine are being manufactured in Japan. The European fabrication is the result of a collaboration between ITER’s European domestic agency Fusion for Energy (F4E) with ASG Superconductors, Iberdrola Ingeniería y Construcción, Elytt Energy, CNIM, SIMIC and the ICAS consortium.

SIMIC and CNIM produced the 70 radial plates for the European-manufactured magnets. These are D-shaped stainless steel plates which support the insulated conductor in spiral grooves, closed by cover plates.

The completed magnet will be transported to SIMIC for testing after which it will be inserted into its case, welded, impregnated with resin and machined, prior to shipment to the ITER construction site at Cadarache in France.