°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ

A lot has happened on the construction platform since the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ 360° virtual tour was released to the website last year with an October data set.

The first ground-level walls of the Tokamak Complex are now visible from afar, the circular bioshield dominates in the centre, and two new buildings—one for radiofrequency heating and the other for cryogenics—are now completely framed out. Elsewhere on site, excavation and early foundation works are underway and the first activities to energize the 400 kV electrical switchyard have been carried out.

The best way to catch up on recent progress is to open the January 2017 update of the 360° virtual tour.

Click or visit the of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ website.

In a recent statement to parliament, the UK government confirmed that—as part of withdrawal from the European Union—the UK would also withdraw from the Euratom Treaty.

On 27 January EUROfusion, which manages European fusion research activities (including the exploitation of the JET tokamak) on behalf of Euratom, issued the following statement: 

Although the withdrawal from Euratom brings in uncertainty to the future of the Joint European Torus (JET), EUROfusion's flagship experiment located at the Culham Center of Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Oxfordshire, the UK government has indicated strong interest in continuing collaboration in nuclear research. "The UK is a world leader in nuclear research and development and there is no intention to reduce our ambition in this important area. The UK fully recognises the importance of international collaboration in nuclear research and development and we will ensure this continues by seeking alternative arrangements," the government said in the statement.

[...] Researchers, engineers and technicians working at JET come from all over Europe, and currently, JET operations receive funding of €69 million, 87.5 percent of which is provided by the European Commission and 12.5 percent by the UK. It is the only existing fusion device capable of operating with the deuterium-tritium fuel, which will be the fusion fuel of the future. And, experiments carried out at JET are important foundations to the fusion experiment °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ, which is currently being built in Cadarache, France. "Naturally, the European fusion community is extremely interested to see a continuation of the JET programme," says Prof. Donné, EUROfusion program manager.

Please see the full statement on the EUROfusion .

Aix-Marseille University and the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization are pleased to announce the 9th °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ International School which will be held in Aix-en-Provence, France, from 20-24 March 2017.

This school, held annually either near °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ or in one of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Members, aims at preparing young researchers to tackle the challenges of magnetic fusion devices, and spreading the global knowledge required for a timely and competent exploitation of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ physics potential.

This year, the summer school will cover the physics of disruptions and control—one of the key issues for the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ reactor and burning plasmas in general. Lectures and specialized seminars will cover current developments in theory and experiments, but are also intended to give the basics of the field. Poster sessions allowing participants to show their work are planned. The 2017 °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ school will be a good opportunity for reviewing the recent progresses in this field and promoting the interaction between different branches of plasma physics, computational physics and applied mathematics.

The course is open to PhD students and postdocs aiming to work in the field of magnetically confined fusion, as well as Master students in physics or engineering.

Registration ends on 7 March 2017. For more information, please visit the .

Editor's note: The first °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ school was organized in July 2007 in Aix-en-Provence, France, and was focused on turbulent transport in fusion plasmas. Five different editions have followed, focused on different subjects: in 2008 in Fukuoka, Japan (magnetic confinement); in 2009 in Aix-en-Provence, France (plasma-surface interaction); in 2010 in Austin, Texas (Magneto-Hydro-Dynamics); in 2011 in Aix-en-Provence (energetic particles); in 2012 in Ahmedabad, India (radio-frequency heating), in 2014 in Aix-en-Provence (high performance computing in fusion science); and in 2016 in Hefei, China (transport and pedestal physics in tokamaks).

Could high-entropy alloys—a combination of different metals in roughly equal concentration—turn out to be THE material for fusion reactors? That's the question materials physicists from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US) are investigating.

The concept behind the creation of these alloys is ten years old and was first proposed by metallurgists. But based on work done at Oak Ridge, where these new hybrid metals were being tested under the influence of radiation, researchers in Finland began running experiments and simulations using different mixtures with nickel.

High-entropy alloys appear to be much more resistant to radiation than pure alloys. To date, the labs at Oak Ridge and the University of Helsinki have just combined two, three or four elements, whereas millions of possible combinations exist.

See the report on the EUROfusion .

Specialists from The Welding Institute (TWI) in the United Kingdom visited °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ on 18 January to deliver a workshop to over 70 attendees from across the organization.

Overviews were given on different welding, joining and inspection techniques as well as the benefits and services available to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ as corporate members of the TWI. Details of previous case studies carried out for both the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization and the European Domestic Agency were provided to demonstrate the large portfolio of services that can be called on.

During the open discussions there was particular interest from a number of °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ divisions in the potential use of ultrasonic inspection for both thin wall pipes and thick-section plates as an alternative to radiography; auditing of potential/in-contract suppliers; and third party manufacturing process review capabilities. Follow up meetings and initiatives on these and other subjects are anticipated to address the challenging, state of the art manufacturing processes required both at suppliers and on-site to enable the construction and assembly of °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ.

--Paul Edwards, °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ mechanical engineer/blanket manifolds

The EUROfusion consortium welcomed its 30th member in January: Ukraine.

The Ukrainian signatory is the Kharkov Institute for Physics and Technology (KIPT), acting as coordinator for fusion research in seven national universities and research institutes. Fusion infrastructure in Ukraine includes two stellarators and two plasma accelerators, with particular expertise in the areas of plasma-facing components, materials, stellarator research and diagnostics.

The EUROfusion consortium coordinates work within the EUROfusion roadmap, which breaks down the path to the realization of fusion energy into specifically defined missions. Thirty research organizations and universities from 26 European countries plus Switzerland are now members; in addition about 100 Third Parties contribute to the research activities through the consortium members.

EUROfusion collaborates with the European Domestic Agency for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ and intensively supports the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization.

Read the full story and find out more about EUROfusion and the European roadmap .

The latest newsletter from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak team in Germany reviews the improvements that were made in 2016 to the machine's in-vessel components and heating systems, discusses plans for the 2017 experimental campaign, and highlights the importance ASDEX operation to the achievement of Europe's to the Realisation of Fusion Energy.

ASDEX Upgrade, in addition to contributing to the knowledge basis required to operate °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ, is focusing increasingly on issues relevent to DEMO, the next-step fusion device.

Read the December issue of the ASDEX Upgrade .

At the EAST tokamak in China, five Italian scientists recently joined their Chinese colleagues to participate in a week-long experiment aimed at testing a voltage-driven vertical stabilization system. The successful tests, carried out in the framework of a joint ASIPP-CREATE-ENEA collaboration, were a key step on the way to MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) control of advanced tokamak configurations, capable of decoupling shape control from vertical stabilization.

The new vertical stabilization system implemented and tested on EAST is identical to the one proposed for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ, and these first tests show that it is compatible with the installation a new °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ-like multivariable shape controller for advanced configurations.

Read more on the ASIPP .

In 2012 the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization retained the European company DAHER to provide global transport, logistic and insurance services for the transport of components from supplier factories to the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ site.

Since that date, DAHER has worked with all °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Members on their transport needs, including the transport of exceptionally sized loads. The company manages all °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ logistics operations from a control room established in Marignane, France, close to the international airport that services the Marseille region.

In November 2016, the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization strengthened its ongoing relationship with DAHER with the signature of a new framework contract for the establishment and management of a central distribution centre located at the arrival port for all components shipped by sea (Fos-sur-Mer, France).

A warehouse space of 12,000 m2 has been fully refitted for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ component storage. The central distribution centre will allow DAHER to match the rhythm of component deliveries to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ's assembly needs.

Read the DAHER press release .

Precise conditions are necessary to achieve fusion reactions inside of a high-temperature plasma. In addition to raising the temperature and the density in the core region of the plasma, which is confined by strong magnetic field, it is also necessary to control the edge region to prevent particles from moving in the direction of the vessel wall. 

A precise understanding of this edge region of the plasma—and accurate predictions of its behaviour—is one of the important topics of fusion research around the world.

At the National Institute of Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan, two researchers have succeeded in running a micro-level simulation of a plasma "blob" in the edge region by using their institute's Plasma Simulator supercomputer.

By marrying the supercomputer's computational capacity with a newly developed calculation program, they were able to calculate the movement of one billion particles. Their research results advance the understanding of the behaviour of the plasma edge and improve prediction accuracy.

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Europhysics News has produced a special issue on nuclear fusion and plasma physics (Volume 47/No 5-6, September-December 2016).

The issue describes the state of fusion research in Europe, how °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ fits into the long-terms goals, and plans for the demonstration reactor after °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ (DEMO).

Highlights include contributions by the head °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization's Science & Operations Department, David Campbell; EUROfusion's Tonny Donné; L.D. Horton from the JET tokamak; and Thomas Klinger from the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator program.

The full issue is available for download on the Europhysics News .

Stefan Gerhardt (left), principal research physicist and head of experimental operations on the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the US, has won the Fusion Power Associates 2016 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award.

The honour, given by directors of the research and educational foundation, recognizes "persons in the relatively early part of their careers who have shown both technical accomplishment and potential to become exceptionally influential leaders in the fusion field." The award was presented on 13 December at the 37th annual meeting of the Fusion Power Associates. 

The group's board of directors cited Gerhardt's "many scientific contributions," including his "recent work on predicting plasma disruptions, which will provide major benefit to °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ and other major fusion experiments, and the leadership you provided and are providing."

Read the full announcement on the PPPL .

Even the greatest performers need rehearsals ... and JET is no exception. Scientists and engineers at the world's largest operating tokamak have been preparing for JET's next starring role — a run of tests using the high-power fuel mixture of deuterium and tritium (D-T).

The deuterium-tritium combination is the one that will be used to gain maximum fusion output in °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ and in the first fusion power stations that will follow it. JET is the only present-day fusion machine that can use tritium and therefore has a vital role in preparing for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ operations.

As a radioactive substance, and one that is in short supply, tritium is not used very often at JET. Most research is carried out with deuterium only (the last operations with tritium were in 2003). However new campaigns of both T-T and D-T experiments are planned in 2018 and 2019 to give the best simulation yet of how fusion plasmas will perform in °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ.

The D-T rehearsal at JET during this summer and autumn aimed to simulate the operating environment for the tritium campaigns. With 13 years since the last tritium experiments, many of the systems and the people working on them have changed. The rehearsal was an ideal opportunity to test procedures for using tritium, train staff and iron out any flaws ahead of the real thing.

See video interviews on the rehearsal experience at (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy).

The FOM Institute DIFFER, in the Netherlands, is starting a large research program to investigate one of the most fundamental difficulties in designing the fusion reactors of the future—how to protect the solid vessel from the intense heat and neutron bombardment of the reaction, especially in the divertor region which "exhausts" the plasma.

The research program "Taming the Flame" is supported by strategic funding from Foundation FOM (Fundamental research On Matter).

Nine new researchers (seven PhD positions and two postdoc positions) will be recruited to work in an integrated approach together with DIFFER's existing scientific staff. 

"In a fusion power plant, even a sturdy metal wall with a high melting point will not be able to resist the plasma," says DIFFER's head of fusion research Marco de Baar. "In our research program, we want to already start managing the heat load inside the plasma, and bring the energy to the wall in a controlled way." The research will focus on controlling and diluting the plasma before it reaches the wall, and on the novel concept of a self-repairing exhaust wall, with a liquid metal layer flowing over and protecting the solid reactor wall.

A key experiment in the program is DIFFER's linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI, the only laboratory facility in the world capable of examining materials exposed to the intense plasma conditions at the walls of future fusion reactors. In addition, the team will test their research at existing fusion experiments in Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

Read the full press release on the .

The European Domestic Agency for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ has awarded a contract to Equipos Nucleares SA (ENSA, Spain) for the supply of two holding tanks and two feeding tanks for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ's water detritiation system. When manufactured and installed in the basement of the Tritium Plant, they will join six other tanks, also supplied by Europe, that were installed earlier in the year.

The water detritiation system at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ will remove tritium from process water during plant operation and recycle it as fuel.

See the news .

For the first time in twenty years, a tokamak will experiment with nuclear plasmas. Ian Chapman, the recently appointed UKAEA Chief Executive confirmed in a Newsline interview that "JET will be operating with tritium again in 2018, and then operating with a deuterium-tritium mix in 2019."

This takes you into the innards of the European machine, which is presently the largest in the world.

After four years of non-stop work, the French tokamak Tore Supra has now become ,the tungsten (W) Environment Steady-state Tokamak. Equipped with an actively cooled tungsten divertor and additional power, experiments at WEST will provide precious data on operation in a tungsten environment in advance of °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ operation.

Considerable modification to the machine's internal elements has been carried out. New components have all been installed in the vacuum vessel (divertor coil windings, protection panels, antennas, diagnostics, tungsten plasma-facing components) and the chamber has now been closed for final commissioning before plasma operation.

The transformation mobilized more than one hundred people: staff from the Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA-IRFM) and also WEST partners, in particular Chinese and Indian on-site collaborators.

Following the upcoming divertor coil impregnation and integrated commissioning, WEST will embark on its scientific life focused on the preparation of °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ divertor operation.

Photo © Christophe Roux-CEA

More on this story in the November issue of the .

The 2015-2016 experimental campaign at the JET tokamak, Europe's flagship device, came to an end on 15 November with nearly all goals met, according to a recent article published on the website.

Highlights included rehearsing the procedures for future tritium-tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments; running a hydrogen campaign during which physicists learned about the dependence of plasma parameters on the mass of the hydrogen fuel used; and the high-power deuterium campaign. 

This success means that JET is right on track for the tritium-tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments planned for upcoming campaigns, which are expected to provide important results for the operation of °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ.

JET will restart operations in 2017.

Read the full article on the EUROfusion .

The Radiation Transport Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has won a prestigious award through the US DOE Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program for radiation shielding model for °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ.

The project, titled "Safe fusion energy: predictively modeling °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ radiation shielding," has been awarded 80 million computer processor hours on the Titan Cray XK7, the most powerful supercomputer in the US for open science.

INCITE awards are given annually to projects that represent "the biggest challenges in science and engineering today, and can't be done anywhere else."

Investigators Seth Johnson, Thomas Evans, and Stephen Wilson propose a radical solution for accurately modelling °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ's shielding design at an unprecedented level of detail and scale.

Read more about the INCITE program and the 2016 winners .

Less than one year ago, last December, the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization signed a large supply contract with W. Schulz GmbH in Germany for the procurement of piping materials. The scope covers up to 65 km (1,800 tonnes) of pipes and 43,000 units (250 tonnes) of fittings. 

The first shipment of pipes and fittings under this contract was delivered late October to the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ worksite. It was the inaugural delivery of a broad °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ Organization-Domestic Agency program for the centralized procurement of piping materials for the component (CCWS), chilled (CHWS), and tokamak cooling water systems, expected to play out over five years.

Thirty-three tonnes of material were delivered, including 450 metres of stainless steel seamless pipes and 350 stainless steel fittings such as tees, elbows and reducers. The material will be stored in °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¸ßÊÖ's largest warehouse on site until needed for installation.