Fabrication of the first European full-size joint sample for ITER

The European Home Team is responsible for the design, the fabrication and the test of the Toroidal Field Model Coil (TFMC) of the ITER project. Within this task, three full-size samples have to be fabricated in industry and tested. Each sample is made of two parallel straight bars of full-size conductor, connected at bottom through a joint designed according to the EU proposal for the ITER coils, and having at top two connections for the test facility. The first sample uses an ITER type Nb3Sn cable-in-conduit embedded in a thick steel square jacket, the lower joint being similar to the inner joints of the TFMC, The second sample uses the TFMC conductor which is an ITER type Nb3Sn cable-in-conduit embedded in a thin steel circular jacket, the lower joint being similar to the outer joints of the TFMC. Last, the third sample will use the same cable embedded in a thin incoloy jacket, fully relevant to the ITER TF coils. This paper reports on the fabrication by Ansaldo of the first sample, emphasizing the differences between the original design and the final design produced after preliminary trials, as well as pointing out the main technical issues.