International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
Description of the ITER project
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a joint international project, involving countries, conducting extensive research on controlled thermonuclear fusion.ITER project has begun in 1985 as Conceptual Design Activities (CDA) phase and continued in 1992 as Engineering Design Activities (EDA) under the auspices of the IAEA according to the terms of four-party agreement (EU, Japan, RF and US) which defined that “The overall objective of ITER was to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful purposes. ITER would accomplish this by demonstrating controlled ignition and extended burn of deuterium-tritium plasmas, with steady state as an ultimate goal, by demonstrating technologies essential to a reactor in an integral system, and by performing integrated testing of the high-heat flux and nuclear components required to utilize fusion energy for practical purposes”.
ITER represents the necessary and essential step towards practical demonstration of controlled fusion power. It will demonstrate moderate fusion power multiplication in a system integrating the appropriate physics and technology, and test key elements required to use fusion as a practical energy source. ITER will be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of an electricity-producing power station. It will provide the basis for the next major step for following demonstration electricity-generating power plant – DEMO.
Following the successful completion of the ITER EDA in July 2001, the ITER participants have been conducting Negotiations on the joint implementation of ITER.
ITER Partners
The ITER participants at present phase of activities are the following countries:
People’s Republic of China
European Union
Japan
The Republic of Korea
The Russian Federation
The United States of America
The International Team, consisting of experts from participating countries is working on the two Work Sites – in Garching, Germany and Naka, Japan.
The Participant’s Teams are working in major fusion laboratories of participating countries. They are conducting their activities in close collaboration with the International Team.
Technical Requirements for ITER-Grid
The advanced network capabilities of GLORIAD should enable the ITER staff and fusion community of participating countries to remotely participate in experiments in the actual ITER facility regardless of where the reactor facility is eventually constructed.To accommodate the construction phase of the project and, later, for operational activities, the various elements – high speed networks, computational facilities, grid software tools, data archive facilities and software, collaborative control room facilities – need to be planned and provisioned today.
The conductivity of the links could start from 155 Mbps in the beginning of construction and evolve to 622 Mbps at the end of 2005, and to 2.5 Gbps at the end of 2006.
