The ITER project: status and prospects

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a fusion energy cooperative programme among the European Atomic Energy Community, the Governments of Japan, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. The main objective of the ITER Project is to achieve a controlled ignited burn time of 1000 seconds. The nominal fusion power is to be 1500 MW. During the first 10 years of operation the Basic Performance Phase, the machine should achieve typically a total of a few thousand hours of burn, while during the second phase, the Enhanced Performance Phase, a more extensive burn time is expected for material tests, energy extraction and tritium breeding tests. The machine is a tokamak and has a toroidal geometry. The plasma, with major and minor radii of respectively 8.1 and 2.8 m, will carry a current of 21 MA. The plasma current is induced and controlled by a set of large superconducting coils with a diameter up to 30 m. The confining toroidal magnetic field will be produced by a set of 20 large superconducting magnets with a total magnetic stored energy of 100 GJ and a maximum field at the winding of 12.5 T. The plasma and nuclear engineering features of the project are also described.