Of Interest archive

A delegation led by Zhao Jing, deputy head of the Chinese Domestic Agency, delivered some 40 kgs of textbooks and teaching materials to the Chinese section of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur International School on Friday 8 July.  

Since its opening in September 2007, virtually all the children of ITER families and many local pupils of both European and non-European nationalities have attended the International School, which provides a bilingual curriculum. The school's pedagogical structure currently comprises six section languages (Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), operating on the principle of parity (French language/section language). Furthermore, from the "collège" level (junior high school), the English speakers students can be enrolled in the English section of European teaching, where the courses are taught in English at 80%.

School director Bernard Fronsacq is pictured at centre.

The call to send in proposals for the next round of EUROfusion Researcher Grants is now out. The deadline is 8 September 2016. Detailed information about eligibility and the selection procedure is available for download here.

A core function of EUROfusion, which manages and funds the European research activities, is to coordinate the training and education activities for European fusion research. The aim is to invest in building a strong fusion community that will not only continue to advance fusion research but also play a vital role in the future when fusion energy is realized. EUROfusion supports PhD and pre-doctoral candidates working on fusion research and has established research and engineering grants to fund the training of fusion engineers and scientists every year.

Two types of grants are offered: EUROfusion Research Grants, which support about ten post-doctoral researcher or equivalent for up to two years; and EUROfusion Engineering Grants, which provide funding for around 20 engineers for a period of three years.

The advanced technology that will be required in the pursuit of fusion energy will require the use of beryllium and other specialized, high-performance materials.

A few days before the 29th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT 2016) opens in Prague this year, a group of specially chosen experts from the fields of science, technology, politics, economics, and media will gather in Berlin, Germany to discuss beryllium applications at BeYOND (Beryllium Opportunities for New Developments).

More information here.

The latest edition of Fusion in Europe is now available from EUROfusion, the consortium of 29 research organization and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland. Updates on the operational campaigns of three European tokamaks and one stellarator, upgrades underway on fusion devices in the UK and France, news from the world of materials research and high performance computing for fusion ... all this and more can be found in the June issue.

Visit the EUROfusion website here.

Four turbines produced for ITER's liquid nitrogen (LN2) cryogenic plant have successfully passed factory acceptance testing and will be delivered to ITER this autumn.

One oil brake turbine and one turbine booster will be installed in each of the cold boxes of the LN2 plant, which is under European procurement.

The liquid nitrogen plant and auxiliary systems will cool down, process, store, transfer and recover the cryogenic fluids of the machine. Two nitrogen refrigerators will be delivered along with two 80 K helium loop boxes, warm and cold helium storage tanks, dryers, heaters and the helium purification system.

In spite of the small diameter of the turbines—not exceeding 15 cm—these tiny pieces of equipment will generate enough cooling power to keep the ITER thermal shields extremely cold. It took Air Liquide contractor Cryostar (France) eight months to complete fabrication.

Image: One turbine booster, fully assembled for factory testing.

See the original article on the European Domestic Agency website.

Latin America's first stellarator was officially inaugurated on 29 June 2016.

The small SRC-1 stellarator device was planned and built by the Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications, which belongs to the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) in Cartago.

The countdown for producing the first plasma was started by a high-ranking government representative from Costa Rica and the TEC President and was witnessed by guests from science and politics. Electronic congratulations had been sent by representatives of international stellarator research from Princeton (US) and IPP at Greifswald (Germany) to mark the advent of the new device.

"Our work is to serve future generations," stated Institute Director Iván Vargas. "If research like this continues to evolve, in the future this technology could be used at a power plant that would take alternative energy to our communities."

The Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications was founded six years ago. It covers the fields of plasma medicine, industrial plasma technology and fusion research. Work hitherto had been concentrated on the small MEDUSA-CR device (Madison Education Small Aspect ratio tokamak), which was taken over from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and on the preparation of the SCR-1 stellarator.

The investment costs for SCR-1 came to USD 500,000. The plasma vessel and modular coils were made in Costa Rica. The small device aims to attain plasma temperatures of 300,000 degrees Celsius. Latin America's first stellarator now joins the ranks of the stellarators in Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain and the USA.

Source: Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, IPP

In June, the Budker Institute in Russia was host to two meetings on ITER diagnostics, with at least 70 international specialists attending.

The members of the Diagnostics Topical Group, ITPA (International Tokamak Physics Activity) met for the 30th time to discuss a range of internationally coordinated research areas that are important to the development of ITER and fusion diagnostic systems. Topics included progress on diagnostic mirrors, which must withstand conditions close to the high-temperature plasma; diagnostics for alpha particles; plasma wall reflections; and plasma control. In parallel, a meeting on port integration reunited several Russian organizations that are—like the Budker Institute—involved in the engineering integration of diagnostics into the ITER port plugs.

In addition to diagnostic engineering, the Budker Institute plays a key part in the development of high-tech electron equipment, research into the investigation of high-temperature plasma on first-wall materials, and the development, manufacturing, and testing of equipment for the ITER machine.

Michal Walsh, head of the Port Plugs & Diagnostics Integration Division at ITER, toured the host facilities in the company of the ITPA members. "Given the technical potential of this research centre and our successful cooperation to date, I look forward to continued cooperation in the future."

-- Alla Skovorodina, Budker Institute

Three additional ITER cryostat segments have arrived in the port of Fos-sur-Mer after a one-month voyage from India.

The 60° segments make up half of Tier 2 of the cryostat base (three other Tier 2 segments are due at a later date). The 120-tonne components have been unloaded in Fos in preparation for their delivery to the ITER site this week (weather permitting) along the ITER Itinerary.

Each 96-wheel transport trailer will carry a protected load that is just over 14 metres long and six metres wide.

In a tokamak fusion reactor, the plasma causes intense heating of the divertor, similar to that encountered by a space shuttle when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. The belly of the shuttle must be protected by special heat tiles. In the same way, the divertor surface is made of small tungsten tiles that are tilted at a grazing angle with respect to the plasma stream. The edges of the tiles, like the nose and wings of the shuttle, are subject to very intense heat flux...

Read more on the shaping of the plasma-facing components, and many other subjects, in issue #13 of the WEST Newsletter.

At Cadarache (south of France), the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA/DSM/IRFM) is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ITER partners. WEST stands for W (tungsten) Environment in Steady-state Tokamak. 

"The proponents of fusion power have for years been promising us a plentiful and relatively safe form of new energy. Well here, at ITER in France, they are starting to make good on that promise."

So begins the 30-minute documentary film on ITER and fusion that aired this past weekend on BBC Horizons.

Presenter Adam Shaw visits ITER in the south of France as well as labs around the world (Germany, US and Canada) to learn more about the "tantalizing possibility" of fusion and its chance at transforming the world's relationship with energy. 

From outside the UK view the program here (inside the UK, watch here).

With transparent skies and 300 days of sunshine a year, the tiny Alpine village of Saint-Véran (alt: 2,042 metres) offers a unique viewpoint on our own familiar fusion furnace. In the 1970s professional astronomers from the Observatoire de Paris used it to observe the Sun's corona with instruments they eventually donated to the village.

Walking in the scientists' footsteps, the local population soon developed a passion for solar astronomy—an amateur club was created, more instruments were acquired through donations and the municipality soon decided to capitalize on its privileged relationship with the Sun.

La Maison du Soleil was inaugurated on Thursday 9 June in the presence of French Vice-Minister for Higher Education and Research, Thierry Mandon, and of ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot.

Designed for the general public, La Maison du Soleil will organize exhibits, conferences and solar observations. Nuclear fusion and ITER are of course part of the permanent exhibit, with posters, panels ... and even a conductor sample provided by the ITER Magnets Division.

Saint-Véran is located in the heart of the Queyras Regional Park, two-and-a-half hours north of ITER.

The third edition of Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion by author Francis F. Chen is now available from Springer (follow this link). In addition to updates in all chapters, the 2016 release includes new chapters on special plasmas and plasma applications.

A recent Chinese version of the 1973 edition of the book is also available here.

While the fusion community continues its quest to harness fusion for energy needs, numerous spin-off benefits are resulting from the research carried out all over the world.

Given its complex, multidisciplinary nature, it should be no surprise that fusion research has driven advances in disciplines ranging from medical technology and environment to astrophysics and material sciences. EUROfusion, the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy, has identified some of these spin-offs and put together a non-exhaustive list that demonstrates the short-term benefits of fusion research on the way to fusion electricity.

Read more about them on the EUROfusion website or download an infographic.

Two types of cameras will be needed inside of the ITER vacuum vessel to support inspection and maintenance operations—oversight cameras that give engineers a broad view inside the vacuum vessel, and cameras embedded on tooling or robotics for a view inside tightly confined spaces.

The European Domestic Agency for ITER is working with industry to develop purpose-built equipment small enough to fit into tight space constraints and capable of withstanding the harsh conditions close to the plasma.

In a project called FURHIS (for FUsion for Energy Radiation Hard Imaging System), Europe is collaborating with Oxford Technologies (UK) to produce mockups of sub-systems that will soon be tested in a radiation environment. Working with French laboratories ISAE (image sensors), CEA (LED illumination system), and Université Jean Monnet (optic system), a 15 mm mockup—small enough to fit inside a one euro coin—has been developed.

The FURHIS sub-systems will now be tested at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN.

Read the original story on the European Domestic Agency website.

Ronald C. Davidson, a pioneering plasma physicist for 50 years who directed the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) during a crucial period of its history and was a founding director of the Plasma Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), passed away on 19 May at his home in Cranbury, New Jersey. He was 74.

"Ron was an anchor for the Laboratory both through his science and through his wisdom," said Stewart Prager, director of PPPL. "His prodigious contributions not just to PPPL's science but also to plasma physics writ large are clear and widely known. Within the Laboratory, he was a mentor and a guide to people young and old. His impact within the Laboratory was enormous."

The physicist won numerous honours in his lifetime, including the prestigious James Clerk Maxwell Prize in Plasma Physics in 2008, the highest national honour in plasma physics. He was a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Davidson was known as a prolific researcher, writer and academic.

Read the full-length obituary on the PPPL website.

New computer simulations at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) indicate that an innovate start-up technique for tokamaks, called coaxial helicity injection (CHI), may support a strong electric current without a traditional solenoid magnet.

In tokamaks, a complex web of magnetic fields control the superhot plasma. In addition to large D-shaped magnets surrounding the vacuum vessel, a central electromagnet known as a solenoid participates in creating the twisting vortex that prevents the plasma from touching the tokamak's walls.

Compact spherical tokamaks, like the NSTX-U recently dedicated at PPPL, as well as future tokamaks may not have room for solenoids. During CHI, magnetic field lines, or loops, are inserted into the tokamak's vessel through openings in the vessel floor. The field lines then expand to fill the vessel space, like a balloon inflating with air, until the loops undergo a process known as magnetic reconnection and snap closed. The newly formed closed field lines then induce current in the plasma.

"Can we create and sustain a big enough magnetic bubble in a tokamak to support a strong electric current without a solenoid?" asks Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi, who performed the computer simulations. "The findings indicate that 'yes, we can do it.'"

Read the full article on the PPPL website.

--Image: Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi

In line with a First Plasma in 2017, the 41-tonne vacuum vessel of the MAST Upgrade project was returned to its concrete-shielded home in late May, where it can now be refitted with its components and systems before commissioning.

The upgraded MAST tokamak will help to add to the knowledge base for ITER by experimenting with key plasma physics issues.

Watch a short video of the milestone on the website of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (UK).

During the next Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE June 2017), Fusion Technology Awards will be presented for the years 2016 and 2017 to individuals who have made outstanding and innovative contributions to research and development in the field of fusion technology.

The Awards each consist of a USD 3,000 cash prize and a plaque. Any person, regardless of nationality or Society affiliation, is eligible for the award, with the exception that no current member of the IEEE/NPSS Standing Committee on Fusion Technology may be considered. The nomination package should be sent to IEEE Senior Member Martin Nieto-Perez (m.nieto@ieee.org), and it should consist of a nomination letter describing the technical and/or leadership contributions on which the nomination is recommended and a resume from the candidate.

The nomination deadline for the 2016 Award is 15 June 2016.

For more detailed information on eligibility, basis for judging, nomination process and a list of past Award recipients, please visit IEEE_NPSS.org and go to the "Fusion Technology Awards" section.

In a report to the US Congress released on 26 May, the Department of Energy (DOE) recommends "that the US remain a partner in the ITER project through Fiscal Year 2018," at which time the country's participation in the project will need to be reassessed.

"At this time, our continued participation [...] is in the best interest of the nation," writes Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in the introductory message to the report.

The 17-page report notes that "the management of the ITER Organization and the performance of the project have improved substantially" under Bernard Bigot's leadership. "The project is now being well-run."

However, "the improvements and performance, while promising, still require additional time to determine if they will be sustained and lead to the long-term success of the project."

Despite the accumulated delays "ITER remains the fastest path for the study of burning plasma," concludes the report.

Photo: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz

Download the DOE report on US participation in ITER here.