Evening Lecture – ITER Primary cooling circuit
The ITER project seeks to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of nuclear fusion power on a scale suitable for power production. To this end, a Tokamak is being built in Cadarache, France, by a consortium of 7 partners: China, EU, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, USA. The target is to realize 500 MW of fusion power during 400 sec. The fusion energy together with other sources of heat is removed by the Tokamak Cooling Water System (TCWS), whose design is the responsibility of the USA. This cooling system faces some unique challenges that will be explained in this lecture.
Speaker
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Walter Van HoveMaster Degree in Mechanical Engineering (UGent, 1976), Master Degree in Fluid Dynamics (Von Karman Institute, 1985), PhD in Mechanical Engineering (UGent, 1986). After 3 years as a research fellow at the Von karman Institute and 8 years as assistant at the UGent, Walter Van Hove joined the Nuclear Department of the Tractebel Engineering company. He worked at Tractebel for 23 years and became an expert in Nuclear Thermal-Hydraulics and in Safety of Nuclear Power Plants. From 2002-2010, he was also part-time professor at the BNEN. In the period 1995-2005, Tractebel obtained several contracts with the EU Domestic Agency of the ITER project to design the ITER Tokamak Cooling Water System. During that period, together with his colleagues at Tractebel Walter Van Hove already worked on several evolutions of the design of the TCWS. In 2005, the ITER construction site was selected and the ITER project reorganized with new partners joining. The design of the TCWS moved to the USA. And in 2011, Walter Van Hove moved to the US joining the US ITER team as lead process engineer for the TCWS. He has worked on the design of the TCWS since then. Currently the focus is on the procurement and manufacturing of the TCWS components.