°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ

 

The 400 papers and posters that were presented throughout the week¡ªsome 70 being °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ-related¡ªclearly demonstrated that, in many critical areas, researchers are reaching a much better understanding of the phenomena that control plasma behaviour¡ªand we all know that this fundamental knowledge is essential to the success of our project and, beyond, to the future of fusion energy.

 

One of the highlights of the meeting was the presentation of : now equipped with an °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ-like wall, JET, together with , is answering critical questions on how tungsten would affect plasma performance in °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ. The results on fuel retention on JET are encouraging and we are awaiting further results from JET on how to optimize plasma performance.

 

The synergy between exploratory experiments on ASDEX Upgrade and follow-up experiments on JET has been valuable.  This has implications for the role of satellite experiments in the Member states when °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ comes into operation. 

 

The superconducting tokamak facilities, , and , clearly see how they could contribute to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ. It was also pleasing to hear that the Tokamak at IPR (India) has been reassembled and that commissioning of the superconducting magnets is underway.

 

 

The disruption observations from JET indicate that there are significant differences between a carbon divertor and a tungsten divertor. The plasma current decays more slowly and the vertical position also evolves more slowly. This is probably related to the decreased radiated power¡ªhowever, the duration of the halo currents is greater.

 

An intriguing result from analysis of disruptions is that 98 percent of disruptions can be flagged with at least 10 ms of warning with only 6 percent of false positives.

 

These results combined with other results on disruption mitigation give greater confidence that a sufficiently reliable disruption mitigation system can be developed for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ, though further work is needed.

 

An increasing body of fundamental knowledge is also being accumulated in the field of ELM control, which will lead us to re-evaluate how to either mitigate the impact of, or preferably suppress, ELMs by means of the in-vessel coils. ASDEX Upgrade, DIII-D and are strongly contributing to this exploration and understanding as well as theorists from around the world. In addition, interesting new data using other techniques, including pellet injection, to control were shown by DIII-D, EAST and KSTAR.

 

Increasingly detailed analysis of stability and confinement characteristics of plasmas are advancing in impressive fashion: the conference heard of the remarkable agreement between the predictions of the "EPED" code and measurements of limiting pedestal pressure in many tokamak experiments.

 

An interesting new analysis of the influence of isotopic mass on the confinement characteristics of H-mode plasmas was also reported from JT-60U, and striking results from nonlinear 3D modelling of individual ELMs with the JOREK code were also presented. An extensive review of recent data on the dependence of the H-mode power threshold carried out by the will also give us food for thought.

 

 

At a town meeting that was held on the following night after a full day of meetings, both of us respectively presented the "The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Research Plan",  and "Burning Plasma Research on °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ"" to a large audience. There is clearly interest in what °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ will do during the Operation Phase.

 

David's presentation related °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ's plans to achieve burning plasma conditions to some of the recent work highlighted at the meeting. Based on successfully achieving burning plasma conditions; Rich's presentation described how °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ would be able to advance our understanding of deuterium-tritium burning plasmas far beyond what we achieved on JET and TFTR during the 1990s. The presentation described not only the progress that both JET and TFTR had made but also the outstanding scientific issues.

 

The results described above are not a comprehensive summary of the meeting but merely some casual observations of interesting results to stimulate people to read the conference proceedings and articles in Nuclear Fusion.

 

Better, maybe, than a dramatic announcement of a revolutionary breakthrough, the conference provided a clear and reassuring image of a community that is marshalling its facilities and intellectual resource to make fusion happen and in the process, addressing key issues of importance to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ.

 

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