Chennai: L&T Heavy Engineering – manufactured 1250 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 recently, accomplishing a major milestone in the nuclear engineering world.
It will be noteworthy to mention that assembly tools of Cryostat were delivered during the lockdown by the Heavy Engineering arm of Larsen & Toubro to ensure the uninterrupted assembly of Cryostat in Reactor pit in southern France.
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.
On this occasion, 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 & shims which are critical to install cryostat base, as brilliantly manufactured by L&T since 2015. This installation into the ITER Tokamak building is a significant activity for other downstream activities to achieve the mission for a 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 Mar 2020. The final part, the Top Lid Sectors will be dispatched from Hazira in July 2020.
Says Anil V Parab, Executive Vice President and Head, L&T Heavy Engineering said “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.”