U.S. ITER awards contracts worth $33 million for materials for ITER's largest magnets

(PhysOrg.com) -- The U.S. ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has awarded two contracts totaling $33.6 million for 8,270 km of niobium tin strand and 4,795 km of copper strand for the Toroidal Field Conductor, a major component of U.S. contributions to the ITER Project. ITER's Toroidal Field Magnets will fill the plasma volume (~1000 cubic meters) with a magnetic field roughly 100,000 times the Earth's magnetic field.

Companies receiving the awards are Luvata Waterbury Inc. of Waterbury, Conn., and Oxford Superconducting Technology of Carteret, N.J. Luvata will produce 6,430 km of niobium tin strand and 4,795 km of copper strand, and Oxford will produce 1,840 km of niobium tin strand. Delivery of the strand is scheduled for 2011.

The ITER Project is an international collaboration of scientists and engineers with the mission of designing and constructing a burning plasma experiment to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power. The goal is to produce fusion power that would be at least ten times greater than the external power delivered to heat the plasma.

The United States is working with its international partners, which include the People's Republic of China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation. The device is being assembled at Cadarache in southeastern France from components designed and fabricated in the member countries.

More information: For more information, please visit: www.usiter.org/ .

Provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (news : web)