Assembly of the sectors and ports of the ITER vacuum vessel

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER is a very complex Project that aims to prove the technical reliability of nuclear fusion. ITER has been Ensa's commitment to the future to strengthen as one of the main manufacturers of big equipment and services internationally in the nuclear field. Ensa started working on the qualification process to be able to bid for the 'Assembly of the ITER vacuum vessel' in June 2010, after two and a half years of pre-qualification, offers, clarifications and long technical meetings, that were followed by commercial meetings Ensa achieved its goal. The 30 of November, Ensa signed what at that time was the biggest of the supplies signed by IO (ITER Organization). A lot of efforts and hard work had been done in order to achieve this goal, but the hardest of all was yet to come, after the signature of the contract, Ensa has 7 years ahead to achieve the final goal, the assembly and welding of the 9 sectors that put together the ITER vacuum vessel and the 54 ports that will allow the assembly of the different auxiliary systems. The scope of the works to be performed can generally be divided into the following areas: - Welding of the sectors and ports; - Non-destructive tests; - Machining; - Dimensional Controls. In order to achieve this goal, the project has been divided into 3 different phases. - Development phase: January 2013 - July 2015; - Pre-production phase: July 2015 - February 2016; - Production phase: February 2016 - February 2020