L&T Heavy Engineering has announced that its 1,250 MT-Cryostat base, the single largest section of the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor, was successfully lifted and placed into a reactor building in France, accomplishing a major milestone in the nuclear engineering world.
Assembly tools of cryostat were delivered during the lockdown by Larsen & Toubro. The cryostat forms the vacuum-tight container surrounding the reactor vacuum vessel and the superconducting magnets and acts essentially as a very large refrigerator. The reactor base, the single largest and heaviest Tokamak component of the world’s largest stainless-steel, high-vacuum, pressure chamber cryostat, will eventually contain the rest of the reactor.
Dr Bernard Bigot, Director-General, ITER organisation said, “We thank L&T for the timely deliveries in the current difficult circumstances of the cryostat base alignment tool and shims, which are critical to installing cryostat base. This installation into the ITER Tokamak building is a significant activity for other downstream activities to achieve the mission for first plasma as soon as possible by the end of 2025.”
L&T has also already delivered the lower cylinder of the Cryostat in March 2019 and upper cylinder in March 2020. The final part, the Top Lid Sectors will be dispatched from Hazira in July 2020.
“ITER is a first of its kind futuristic global project. The cryostat is the largest vacuum vessel ever built with 29.4 meters in diameter, 29 meters in height weighing 3,850 MT. Successful delivery of such complex projects is ingrained in L&T’s culture,” says Anil V Parab, Executive Vice President and Head, L&T Heavy Engineering.
India is among the seven elite countries funding the $20 billion international thermonuclear experimental reactor programme in Cadarache, France. This is one of the world’s largest research projects that seeks to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power.