Progress status of the project
The Divertor Tokamak Test facility will be one of the largest scientific infrastructures in Italy and the most advanced tokamak in Europe after ITER.
It is a fully superconducting Tokamak, able to confine deuterium plasmas with high flexibility. Its parameters (Ip = 5.5 MA BT = 6 T R = 2,19 m, Badd =45 MW, see Table) places DTT in a position relevant for DEMO design.
Comparison among DTT, ITER and DEMO
The relevance of DTT for the achievement of its goal can be grasped through the parameter P/R, the ratio of the power flowing to the divertor to the major radius, that is similar to that of ITER and DEMO, the demonstration fusion power plant presently being designed by EUROfusion.
DTT is in the construction phase. About one third of the construction budget has been committed in industrial contracts.
The Ni3Sn superconducting strand produced by KAT for the toroidal field coils and the NiTi strand produced by Furukawa for the poloidal field coils PF2-PF5 has been completed. Twelve of the 95 unit lengths of the superconducting cable for the toroidal field coils have been produced by ICAS. The winding line is being assembled at ASG and the prototype of the toroidal field casing has been produced by SIMIC.
The toroidal field power supply are under construction at JEMA and the protection system at OCEM.
The design of the vacuum vessel has been completed and the procurement is being launched. It will be followed in 2023 by the launch of the procurement of the poloidal field coils.
The procurement of the material and of the equipment for the divertor manufacturing is progressing.
The pre-series 170GHz gyrotron, the first of the batch of 16 gyrotrons produced by Thales is under construction and the acceptance test is foreseen in November 2023. The gyrotrons will produce 1MW each of power to heat the DTT plasmas. A second batch of 16 gyrotrons is foreseen for the second phase of operation of the project.
As part of a 55Meuros grant on Next generation EU funds, the procurement of the solid state transmitters for the 60-90MHz radiofrequency system (4MW in the first phase of operations, 8MW in the second phase) is being launched.
The 150kV connection to the Roma east node has been approved and the realization has started. The executive design is under preparation.
The definitive design of the new buildings will be completed by the middle of 2023. After verification by a third party, the procurement will be launched by the end of 2023.
Here below a schematic image of the main DTT buildings with an indication of their destinations is reported
Below, the Operational Planning is sketched (4 years each phase).