• SPECIAL TOPIC: POWER GENERATION •
The sheer scale of the ITER project was evident from a recent presentation by ITER’ s Communication Officer Sabina Griffith at the November 2025 Stainless Steel World Conference. Just consider the basic facts: ITER boasts over 30( 34 to be exact) participating nations, thousands of contributing engineers and scientists, a project timeline dating back over 40 years, a 42-hectare construction platform, and at its heart, a so-called tokamak weighing in at 23,000 tons— 3.5 times the Eiffel Tower.
A tokamak is a device that can facilitate a controlled, sustainable fusion reaction— the same process that powers the sun. The tokamak uses a powerful magnetic field to contain plasma in an axially symmetrical torus— in layman’ s terms, a donut-shaped vessel. By heating plasma to extreme temperatures, tokamaks should be capable of generating more energy than they consume. Note that for many decades, research-scale tokomaks were net energy users.
Shared cause In her presentation, Sabina Griffith stressed that ITER had brought together countries with a shared cause, namely, to transform our energy legacy. She also noted how, at the Geneva Summit of November 1985, former leaders President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev agreed on launching collaboration in fusion“ for the benefit of all mankind.”
Fig. 1: Basic units inside ITER’ s tokamak, which features an estimated one million components. Flags indicate the country / region of origin.
Fig. 2: One of the 18 toroidal coils being transported. Each coil weighs 360 tonnes and measures 9 x 17 meters. Note the size of the workers standing close by.
Table 1: List of materials— vacuum vessel and ports. #— with additional ITER requirements: regulations, radiation protection( impurities limits), vacuum, magnetic
Materials Forms Codes, Standards Comments Austenitic steel 316L( N)-IG Plates, forgings, bars RCC-MR, Sec. 2 Structural, pressure retaining Austenitic steel 316L( EN 1.4404) Piping, bars RCC-MR, Sec. 2 Structural, pressure retaining
Austenitic steels 304( EN 1.4301), 304L( EN 1.4307)
Borated steels 304B7( UNS S30467), 304B4( UNS S30464)
Plates, beams RCC-MR, Sec. 2 Non-cooled parts of ports
Plates ASTM A-887 Non-pressure retaining, in-wall shielding
Ferritic steel 430( UNS S43000) Plates ASTM A-240 Non-pressure retaining, in-wall shielding Austenitic steel XM-19( B8R) Bolts, washer, nuts ASTM A-479 Non-pressure retaining, in-wall shielding Alloy 625( UNS N06625) Bolts ASTM B-446 Non-pressure retaining, in-wall shielding Steel 660( EN grade 1.4980) Bolts RCC-MR, Sec. 2, EN 10269 Non-pressure retaining, in-wall shielding Weld filler materials Electrodes, wires RCC-MR, Sec. 4-
32 Stainless Steel World Americas | June 2026 | ssw-americas. com