ITER : Load tests Heavyweight champion

The Assembly Hall, with its two giant tools – REEL  2 overhead cranes – towering 20 metres above ground, is one of the most spectacular locations on the ITER site.

Load tests on ITER largest tools designed to assemble two toroidal field coils with one vacuum vessel sector and corresponding thermal shield panels. The load tests consist in upending, moving and installing two 350-tonne toroidal field coil dummy loads on the wings of the giant tool’s

When a dummy load weighing as much as a fully loaded 747 is slowly upended, displaced and eventually installed into one of the tool’s wings, spectacular gives way to awesome.

A crane on the shop floor worked in tandem with the overhead cranes to first raise the loads to a vertical position, lift them off the floor, and transport them to the tools to be positioned on supports. The testing of the first sector sub-assembly tool will begin soon.

Video 

Pour suivre l’avancée du projet ITER