The nuclear fusion reactor

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), or in Latin “The Way”, is a nuclear fusion reactor currently under construction. The reactor, with a wide range of installations for plasma heating and diagnostics, is based on the tokamak concept. It will be equipped with superconducting magnet coils. The first plasma is scheduled to be generated in 2020; from 2027, experiments with deuterium and tritium are planned. ITER is intended to achieve a thermal output of around 500 megawatts with a heating power of approximately 50 megawatts.

However, ITER will not produce electricity. If ITER demonstrates that the tokamak design can be scaled up into the gigawatt range, the successor project DEMO is expected to feed electricity into the grid from around 2040.

The ITER – EDIPO subproject

EDIPO stands for European Dipole Project and is a facility for testing samples of superconducting magnets for ITER and for obtaining results for future commercial energy generation through fusion. To be able to carry out the tests at all, the necessary facilities must be created.

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are at the heart of these tests and are presenting the EDIPO facility with a new control system and visualization from Autexis. The results from EDIPO help inform decisions about future fusion reactors.

The Autexis Solution

The control concept includes a Siemens S7-317 with various decentralized ET-200M control units. The highly sensitive sequences (cooling, purging, standby, operation, warm-up, etc.) were implemented using Autexis function library blocks. To monitor EDIPO during operation, the plant, trend, and alarm screens were implemented in WinCC.

Project success

The project had to meet an important requirement: to realistically simulate and test the ITER environment, the samples must be able to operate in a magnetic field of up to 12.5 tesla. On March 22, 2013, this was achieved thanks to successful collaboration between the EDIPO team and Autexis. The magnetic field of 12.5 tesla was reached. This marked a breakthrough for the fusion community.

Customer Benefits

The global fusion community now has a unique facility available that can be used to test samples for ITER before they go into production.