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Jacobs
The machine, known as CHIMERA (or Combined Heating and Magnetic Research Apparatus), will be located at UKAEA’s new Fusion Technology Facility in South Yorkshire, UK.
According to Greek mythology, CHIMERA was a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.
CHIMERA is a unique world-first facility in which it will be possible to simulate the extreme conditions found within a fusion power plant, but without any nuclear reactions taking place. CHIMERA will seek to prove whether nuclear fusion, the process which powers the Sun, can be a safe and viable energy source for Earth and will be the only machine in the world able to test components under the unique combination of conditions encountered in large fusion devices, such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France. Iter meaning “the way” or “the path” in Latin.
CHIMERA will simultaneously subject components to: Therefore, enabling industry in the UK and internationally to design, and eventually qualify, components for future commercial fusion power plants. A major contract (£14.3M) for the design and construction of CHIMERA has been agreed between UKAEA (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy’s operator) and US based global professional services firm Jacobs. A key component of the construct is a pulsed magnet with a vertical field and this is facilitated by a water-cooled copper conductor. Accurate measurement of the flow of the cooled demineralised water through the conductor is vital. Jacobs were originally considering Vortex meters but, following discussions with ABLE Instruments, McCrometer V-Cone meters were selected due to accommodate the high temperature and pressure of the low conductivity demineralised water. ABLE subsequently provided two complete systems including the flow meter, flow computer, differential pressure transmitter, temperature transmitter and a line pressure transmitter to be installed upstream of the V-cone. The three transmitter values will feed directly into the flow computer to provide a mass flow measurement. The meters were required to operate under two different sets of process conditions: Fusion is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner energy the world badly needs. CCFE scientists and engineers are developing the technology to bring fusion electricity to the grid. Bringing the power source of the stars down to Earth could give us low-carbon electricity for millennia to come.