ITER magnet and structure assembly plan

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the largest tokamak that has ever been planned. The assembly of the ITER machine presents several unique problems for handling, alignment and bracing of the superconducting magnets and structure components, in particular the toroidal field (TF) coil with the corresponding vacuum vessel (VV) sector (1,200 tonnes), and the central solenoid (CS) with the bucking cylinder (BC) assembly (1,350 tonnes). Accurate positioning of the toroidal field coils relative to one another, and relative to the central solenoid will be required, to achieve the design stresses in the magnets during cooldown, and machine operation. Special tooling will be used to limit component distortion during installation, shorten the schedule, and reduce the cost. Assembly issues and features of handling, positioning, and immobilizing of the superconducting coils and structure components for the ITER are discussed.