Case Study

KTS Terminates and Tests Cabling for Groundbreaking Fusion Lab

Photo credit: Gretchen Ertl

The Work

The work involved terminating 12 strand OM4 multimode fiber cable in cabinets that are positioned in a circle around the centerpiece of both the room and the project—the strongest fusion magnet in the world. The lab is experimenting with using this superconducting magnet to create practical, commercial, carbon-free power through fusion. Truly clean energy!

The cabling from the cabinets connects to switches, to servers and to one another, designed to build in redundancy if a fiber were to fail. An important requirement for the lab design was for the cabling and cabinets to be easily moveable by lab staff. KTS’s solution was to coil the cabling on top of the cabinets to make it easy to disconnect, move and reconnect as needed.

Challenges

The lab is unique and required a well-thought out plan for the purposefully-designed, complex structured cabling. Typically the structured cabling cabinets are adjacent, but for this project, the cabling cabinets were spread in a circle around the room, meaning that KTS had to work around and over existing equipment to terminate the cables and test them. They also had to make sure their work did not interfere with the operations and productivity of work in the lab.

Benefits/Impact

The cabinets and cabling are installed in such a way that they can be easily disconnected and moved as the project requires, and the lab can move forward with this exciting and groundbreaking project. KTS is delighted to have designed and installed the structured cabling to enable the lab to support this innovative research.

To learn more about this research you can read more here.