South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries has won an order worth $101.6m to supply two more vacuum vessel sectors for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project under construction in Cadarache in southern France.
The company was awarded a contract in 2010 from the ITER Organization for the supply of two of ITER's nine vacuum vessel sectors, each 12 meters in height and weighing 400 tonnes. The vacuum vessel provides a high-vacuum environment for the plasma, improves radiation shielding and plasma stability, acts as the primary confinement barrier for radioactivity, and provides support for in-vessel components such as the blanket and the divertor.