Forum for Science, Industry and Business

ITER Organization and Japan sign first Procurement Arrangement: Superconductor Manufacturing on Industrial Scale

This Procurement Arrangement is for part of the conductor for the 18 Toroidal Field (TF) Coils that will confine the plasma within the ITER machine. “Being the first Procurement Arrangement, it clearly signals that ITER procurements have begun and on a big scale”, Kaname Ikeda, ITER Director General, said.

With the manufacture of approximately 400 tons of niobium3-tin (Nb3Sn) conductor cables it is one of the largest superconducting cable procurements in history. “The amount of material that is going to be manufactured is certainly unprecedented in its scale and it signals the first step in the construction of the ITER magnets”, Neil Mitchell, responsible officer for the ITER Magnet System said.

The ITER TF coils are designed to have a magnetic energy of 41 Giga Joule and a maximum magnetic field of 11.8 tesla. Their design is the result of an international research and development effort. The manufacture of these strands with about 10000 micron-scale filaments per strand is extremely complex and uses cutting-edge technology. The cable has been developed through a series of tests on different designs. Performance checks and quality control during the production process will be of the highest importance for the success of ITER.

About 90% of the ITER components and structures are provided “in kind” by the Members, through the Domestic Agencies. Following this Agreement, ten of the 18 coil winding packs for ITER will be produced in Europe, including one spare. The nine to be produced in Japan are the subject of today’s signature.

Toshi Nagaoka expressed his satisfaction at being part of the first signing ceremony and stated that signature of the Procurement Arrangement will now allow the Japanese Domestic Agency to start the procurement for ITER.

Jennifer Hay | alfa
Further information:
http://www.iter.org/

Im Focus: Highly precise wiring in the Cerebral Cortex

Our brains house extremely complex neuronal circuits, whose detailed structures are still largely unknown. This is especially true for the so-called cerebral cortex of mammals, where among other things vision, thoughts or spatial orientation are being computed. Here the rules by which nerve cells are connected to each other are only partly understood. A team of scientists around Moritz Helmstaedter at the Frankfiurt Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Helene Schmidt (Humboldt University in Berlin) have now discovered a surprisingly precise nerve cell connectivity pattern in the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for orienting the individual animal or human in space.

The researchers report online in Nature (Schmidt et al., 2017. Axonal synapse sorting in medial entorhinal cortex, DOI: 10.1038/nature24005) that synapses in...

Im Focus: Tiny lasers from a gallery of whispers

New technique promises tunable laser devices

Whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators are used to make tiny micro-lasers, sensors, switches, routers and other devices. These tiny structures rely on a...

Im Focus: Ultrafast snapshots of relaxing electrons in solids

Using ultrafast flashes of laser and x-ray radiation, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Garching, Germany) took snapshots of the briefest electron motion inside a solid material to date. The electron motion lasted only 750 billionths of the billionth of a second before it fainted, setting a new record of human capability to capture ultrafast processes inside solids!

When x-rays shine onto solid materials or large molecules, an electron is pushed away from its original place near the nucleus of the atom, leaving a hole...

Im Focus: Quantum Sensors Decipher Magnetic Ordering in a New Semiconducting Material

For the first time, physicists have successfully imaged spiral magnetic ordering in a multiferroic material. These materials are considered highly promising candidates for future data storage media. The researchers were able to prove their findings using unique quantum sensors that were developed at Basel University and that can analyze electromagnetic fields on the nanometer scale. The results – obtained by scientists from the University of Basel’s Department of Physics, the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the University of Montpellier and several laboratories from University Paris-Saclay – were recently published in the journal Nature.

Multiferroics are materials that simultaneously react to electric and magnetic fields. These two properties are rarely found together, and their combined...

Im Focus: Fast, convenient & standardized: New lab innovation for automated tissue engineering & drug

MBM ScienceBridge GmbH successfully negotiated a license agreement between University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the biotech company Tissue Systems Holding GmbH about commercial use of a multi-well tissue plate for automated and reliable tissue engineering & drug testing.

MBM ScienceBridge GmbH successfully negotiated a license agreement between University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the biotech company Tissue Systems...