Status of the KSTAR tokamak construction

The KSTAR is a superconducting tokamak under construction at the National Fusion Research Center (NFRC) in Daejeon, Korea. The project mission aims at a steady-state operation and advanced tokamak physics. At present, the project is in the peak of fabrication and assembly phase. The fabrication of the major tokamak structures such as vacuum vessel, cryostat, port system, thermal shields, and gravity support, has been completed. The manufacture and testing of the 30 superconducting magnets are rigorously progressing. As of September 2005, 16 toroidal field (TF) coils and four large poloidal field coils have been completed. To verify the operational feasibility of the KSTAR coils, cool-down and current charging tests of a real sized prototype TF coil and a pair of central solenoid (CS) model coil have been carried out. The assembly of the device has begun in the beginning of 2004. Now, the vacuum vessel body, thermal shields and I I toroidal field magnets were assembled on the tokamak position. Assembly finish is scheduled for August 2007. This paper describes the manufacture and assembly progress of the KSTAR tokamak. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.