Challenging issues in the design and manufacturing of the European sectors of the ITER vacuum vessel

Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Domestic Agency for the ITER project, has to supply seven sectors as part of the European contribution to the project. F4E signed the Procurement Agreement with ITER Organization (10) in 2009. After a call for tender in 2010, the contract for the manufacturing of seven sectors was placed in October 2010 to a consortium of three Italian companies, Ansaldo, Mangiarotti and Walter Tosto (AMW). The first sector in the manufacturing route is Sector 5 (later will come 4, 3, 2, 9, 8, 7). This paper will cover: the status of the engineering activities, design, procurement and preparation to begin the manufacturing in 2013. Also will be presented the statutory and regulatory requirements of the French Nuclear Safety regulator and the status of the relevant R&D mock-ups to demonstrate manufacturing feasibility control of distortions (using predictions with analysis and algorithms to change in real time the manufacturing route in order to correct such distortions, inspectability and metrology). Another important aspect at this stage of the manufacturing is qualification of activities like welding, Non-destructive Examination and Hot Forming. This paper describes the status of the activities currently in process in order to meet with the challenging design, schedule and high quality requirements of the project. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.