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13th toroidal field coil arrives from Europe

The toroidal field coil procurement effort has been one of the longest of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ program, initiated by Procurement Arrangements signed in 2007 and 2008. Manufacturing is nearly completed.
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The 330-tonne TF17 was delivered early on 6 May 2022 after four nights on the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Itinerary. Approximately 140 "highly exceptional loads" have been delivered to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ since 2015. (See more at /transport.)
Six Domestic Agencies took part in the procurement of over 100,000 km of niobium-tin superconducting strand (China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States); now, Europe and Japan are completing the fabrication and testing of 18 toroidal field coils plus one spare. Each coil is made up of a superconducting winding pack and surrounding stainless steel coil case.

Thirteen toroidal field coils have already arrived on site including coil #17 (TF17), delivered last Friday 6 May by the European Domestic Agency. Ninety-nine percent of the total manufacturing scope has been completed.

Once at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ, the toroidal field coils are either stored or moved to a staging area to be prepared for handling. The teams carry out a variety of mechanical preparatory activities such as the welding of cooling pipes and the attachment of clamps/interfaces.

When their turn comes in the assembly sequence, the D-shaped coils are associated (by pair) with one vacuum vessel sector. Coils TF12 and TF13, from Japan, were the first to be assembled with vacuum vessel sector #6 on specialized tooling in the Assembly Hall, forming the first sub-section of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ vacuum vessel. (See related article in this issue.) A second sub-assembly operation is underway that will associate European coil TF9 and Japanese coil TF8 with vacuum vessel sector #1(7).

The delivery of six more coils—three from Europe and three from Japan—will complete the toroidal field coil procurement program.