Overview and status of ITER Cryostat manufacturing

Highlights: • Manufacturing status of one of the largest and the heaviest fully welded stainless steel vacuum chambers in the world (ITER Cryostat). • Overview of manufacturing stages and its segmentation. • Overview of manufacturing procedures and assembly and installation. - Abstract: One of ITER-India's commitments to the ITER Organization is procurement of the ITER Cryostat. It is a large vacuum vessel (∼29 m dia. and ∼29 m height), which is made up of 304/304 L dual marked stainless steel and has a total mass over 3500 t. The thickness of the vessel wall varies from 50 mm to 190 mm. It is one of the largest and the heaviest fully welded stainless steel vacuum chambers in the world which provides vacuum thermal insulation for the superconducting magnets operating at 4.5 K and for the thermal shield operating at 80 K. It also mechanically supports the magnet system along with the vacuum vessel (VV). The cryostat is designed and constructed according to ASME Section-VIII Division-2 with additional ITER Vacuum Handbook requirements and it is classified as protection important component (PIC-2). Manufacturing of cryostat segments is ongoing in India; sub-assembly of four major sections of the cryostat from the segments will be done at the ITER site in a temporary workshop building and the final assembly will be done in the pit of the tokamak building, the final location. The cryostat manufacturing contract has been awarded to Larsen and Toubro Limited in August 2012 after completion of design [4] and signing of Procurement Arrangement [1] with ITER Organization. Manufacturing of the cryostat was started in January 2014 after approval of the manufacturing drawings and procedures. The temporary workshop of 44 m × 110 m × 26 m in height has been completed in November 2014 at the ITER site with a 200 t crane installed. This paper gives an overview and the status of the cryostat manufacturing.