The L&T Heavy Engineering, has sent its first consignment of parts for Cryostat, a major section of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) facility, which is being built in South of France.

ITER is a mammoth project being carried out by the international scientific community for producing power using nuclear fusion. It is being built through in-kind contributions from the participant countries in the form of components. India through Department of Atomic Energy is supporting ITER.

The Cryostat is a containment vessel with super-cooled liquids, which are meant for controlling very high temperatures, generated during fusion reactions.

A statement issued by L&T said that this is the first HEL (Heavy Exceptional Load) consignment for the ITER programme, which is being dispatched to France with a total weight of 460 metric tonnes.

The Cryostat is a fully welded cylindrical vacuum chamber, designed with an overall dimension of 29.3 meter diameter, 29.6 meter height and weight of 3850 metric tonnes. Built from stainless steel, its thickness varies from 50 mm to 250 mm. The major forgings for the Cryostat segment were indigenously made and supplied by L&T Special Steel and Heavy Forgings.

ITER-India is the domestic agency, created with a responsibility to provide India’s contributions of equipment to the project. The agency had commissioned L&T for making the Cryostat.

In view of the very large dimensions of the structure, the cryostat is being fabricated in different segments at L&T’s Hazira facility. It is to be dispatched in 50 different modules to France. This consignment marks the dispatch of the first module.

 

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