Indian firm completes in-wall shielding for international reator

Project executing major Avasarala Technologies on Tuesday announced completing the manufacture of In-Wall Shielding (IWS) in one of the nine sectors of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Vacuum vessel.

"We are privileged to be associated with ITER in manufacturing, assembly and supplying of IWS for the ITER Vacuum Vessel and have completed an important milestone of delivering a complete set of shielding blocks for one complete sector (sector #6)," said Avasarala Technologies Chief Executive T.T. Mani.

"Manufacturing of IWS involves water-jet cutting and precision CNC machining of borated steel and they have to meet very stringent quality norms as ITER is a nuclear installation," Mani added.

ITER is a consortium of India, the European Union, South Korea, China, Japan, the US and Russia responsible for the design, manufacture, supply and commissioning of ITER systems and equipment.

The project is being constructed in southern France at a cost of Rs 1 lakh crore. It will receive nine per cent funding from India.

It is an international nuclear fusion mega engineering project which is likely to emerge as the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.

Under in-kind contribution, India will design, manufacture and install various systems and equipment through its domestic agency ITER-India.

Established in 1985, Avasarala Technologies has been a strategic partner to government agencies like Nuclear Power Corporation Ltd. (NPCIL), Defence Labs, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for their needs.

--IANS

sth/bim/vt