ASDEX Upgrade breaks record for power exhaust

A world record in heating power, in relation to the size of the device, has been achieved by the ASDEX Upgrade fusion device at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching: This was made possible by a sophisticated control system.

 

For the first time worldwide, a fast feedback control facility ensures, on the one hand, that the hot (millions of degrees), high-power plasmas needed are produced and, on the other, that the wall of the plasma vessel is not overloaded, this being an important result on the way to a fusion power plant.

 

[...] The hitherto unattained heating power of 14 megawatts per metre with respect to the radius of the device was achieved without overloading the divertor plates.