ºÚÁÏÉçapp

The following was posted recently on "Tokamak Tales," a blog run by fusion engineers and physicists at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the UK.

By Sarah Medley It's a really exciting time for fusion research right now ¡ª we're building the next-generation tokamak ºÚÁÏÉçapp and we're working towards a demonstration power station (known as DEMO), to put fusion electricity on the grid before 2050. However, the dream of fusion as the ultimate energy source will never become reality without one essential ingredient: people! We need people to continue the research, to operate ºÚÁÏÉçapp and design DEMO! So it is essential that the fusion community considers how to inspire this next generation of fusion scientists and engineers - often referred to as "the ºÚÁÏÉçapp generation."   Fortunately, the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) already has a strong outreach program dedicated to this goal. We give tours of our JET and MAST fusion experiments to A-level and university students, and we take the Sun Dome science roadshow into primary schools. However, the graduates realized that there was a "gap in the market" when it comes to secondary school students, so we decided to develop something specifically aimed at inspiring this age group to pursue science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to A-level and beyond!

And behold, the CCFE Fusion Workshop was born. Developed entirely by CCFE graduates, the Fusion Workshop is an interactive activity session that uses hands-on science and engineering demonstrations to bring the real-world applications of STEM subjects to life in the context of fusion research. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Well basically, we assemble a crack team of graduates, pile them into a van with a load of demonstration kits and send them off to a local secondary school to invade a physics lesson. [...] You can read more about the Fusion Workshop initiative at "."

Professor Steve Cowley, director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, and Dr Michael Dittmar, a researcher with the Institute of Particle Physics at ETH Zurich, debate in a 37-min podcast that aired on The Guardian's ''Science Weekly'' program on 26 January. 

The discussion ranged from reactor design challenges to the politics and finances of ºÚÁÏÉçapp. 

Listen to the podcast .

?Nuclear fusion is the dream of energy scientists the world over, because it promises limitless, clean electricity. Most efforts to kickstart the process use high-intensity lasers, insane magnetic field and super-hot hydrogen plasmas. But there may be a more humble alternative. It's called sonofusion, and it involves bubbles...

When liquid undergoes rapid changes in pressure, cavities can form ¡ª seemingly from nowhere, but usually around some kind of impurity or imperfection in the fluid. The changing pressure causes this cavity to expand and contract: this is a bubble, and its method of creation is known as cavitation. In particularly violent pressure fields, the bubble can contract so quickly and with so much force that it collapses entirely, producing a shock wave. This phenomenon's what causes the dramatic pitting on boat propellor and water pumps, where high fluctuating pressures causes bubbles to form and collapse.

But in the controlled environment of a laboratory, the bubbles can do more than cause damage. Way back in 1934, at the University of Cologne, H. Frenzel and H. Schultes turned of the lights in their laboratory, put an ultrasound transducer in a tank of photographic developer fluid, and turned it on. They were hoping to speed up the development process of photographic film ¡ª but instead, they noticed dots of light that appeared for a split-second at a time This was the first evidence of a process called sonoluminescene, where the large quantities of energy generated by a collapsing bubble cause light to be emitted. And where there's light, there's energy.

[...]

Read the full article on the website.

Photo by R.Classen /used under re-licensing agreement via rcphotostock.com

 

?On an icy and sunny morning, a delegation of engineers, designers and design office coordinators from the seven Domestic Agencies went down into the Tokamak foundations for a technical visit.

Part of the CAD (Computer Aided Design) Working Group, the 15 members of the delegation were on site for the 13th CAD Working Group Workshop that took place at ºÚÁÏÉçapp Headquarters from 27 to 29 January.

The group was warmly welcomed by Laurent Patisson, Section Leader for Nuclear Buildings, who took them for a one-hour tour to the heart of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp platform: the foundations of the Tokamak Complex.

After a first glance from the belvedere¡ªthe viewpoint from the northern corner of the Tokamak Complex worksite where visitors are usually taken¡ªthe group went onto the Tokamak Complex floor (the B2 slab), which was icy in some places due to a recent cold snap. 

Although the delegation was more than familiar with the design and the drawings of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp facilities, for many it was the first time on site. Philippe Le-Minh, Design Office coordination officer, was particularly thrilled to "feel all the activity going on," while Pierre-Yves Chaffard, head of Technical Support Services for the European Domestic Agency, remarked that it is "always interesting to see with our eyes, what we are used to seeing through our computers."   

As the group returned to ºÚÁÏÉçapp Headquarters for the rest of their meetings, Geun Hong Kim, Design Office team leader for the Korean Domestic Agency, summed up the general feeling: "Now I can believe that ºÚÁÏÉçapp will be successful."

-- Julie Marcillat

?The Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research, ºÚÁÏÉçapp's neighbour in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, has published issue #8 of the WEST newsletter.

The issue features a report about the integration of WEST into the EUROfusion ºÚÁÏÉçapp Physics Programme, progress on the calibration of diagnostics in the machine, and the test deployment of a WEST inspection robot inside of the EAST tokamak.

WEST stands for (W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak), where "W" is the chemical symbol of tungsten. The Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research is modifying the Tore Supra plasma facility to become a test platform open to all ºÚÁÏÉçapp partners.

Read the eighth issue of the WEST Newsletter .

The JET machine area is a hive of activity as the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) prepares the facility on behalf of for its next run of experiments later in 2015.

The shutdown period is an opportunity for engineers to tune up key systems on JET and to install new components to improve the tokamak's performance. This time round, the focus is on plasma fuelling and heating systems. The high frequency pellet injector, which propels frozen deuterium fuel into the JET plasma, is being optimized and repositioned to achieve more reliable operation. A refurbished antenna¡ªthe ion cyclotron resonance heating system, which produces radiowaves that resonate with the plasma particles and heat them up¡ªwill also be plugged in. JET's antenna is similar to the one that the next-step ºÚÁÏÉçapp Tokamak will use. Bringing it back online will mean that experiments can simulate ºÚÁÏÉçapp conditions more accurately, and has the added advantage of helping to flush out impurities from the core of the plasma.

European fusion researchers are keen to see how the 2014 JET tests have left their mark on the machine. The shutdown is enabling CCFE's team of remote handling engineers to remove sample tiles from the interior of JET so their condition can be analyzed. Inspecting the tiles will yield valuable information about how the beryllium and tungsten wall lining is being affected by its close proximity to the plasma (another hot topic for ºÚÁÏÉçapp). And a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner has been inside JET collecting dust which can also give pointers on the interaction between the plasma and the wall materials.

In a similar vein, a new high-resolution camera has just been taken into the JET chamber to photograph the tiles in the divertor region. In this area, as the name suggests, impurities and waste material are diverted out of the plasma, and the tungsten surfaces of the divertor are exposed to intense heat as a result. The photographic survey is giving scientists the most detailed pictures yet of the condition of this area of the machine.

Read the full article on the CCFE website .

The ºÚÁÏÉçapp Business Forum 2015 (IBF/15) will take place in Marseille, France from 25 to 27 March 2015.

Already, 256 participants from 135 companies have registered to participate.

IBF/15 is a unique occasion for companies to approach the ºÚÁÏÉçapp Project and to investigate possibilities for involvement or partnership around upcoming tender offers.

Key project actors will present the status of systems. Twelve thematic workshops with presentations will be given by the ºÚÁÏÉçapp, the procurement agencies for ºÚÁÏÉçapp¡ªthe Domestic Agencies¡ªand key suppliers.

Visit the IBF/15 for registration information.

The JET and Medium-Size Tokamaks General Planning Meeting was held in January in Lausanne at the Olympic Museum. The conference was a major step towards the internationalization of the TCV tokamak at EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne).   The EUROfusion Consortium is the umbrella organization of all fusion research laboratories in Europe including Switzerland. Tasked with building the roadmap to ºÚÁÏÉçapp and DEMO, the prototype of a fusion commercial reactor, it provides the work platform for exploiting the Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, sometimes referred to as "little ºÚÁÏÉçapp." EPFL's TCV tokamak carries out important experimental work in fusion, focusing on different plasma confinements and shapes.    The Planning Meeting, organized by the Center for Research in Plasma Physics (CRPP), which runs the TCV, focused on proposals for experiments aligned with the EUROfusion roadmap and that could be performed in 2015 on the roadmap's dedicated devices: JET, ASDEX Upgrade and EPFL's TCV. Scientists presented their views of a comprehensive experimental strategy, which was discussed by the almost 150 senior scientists attending the conference.   The selected experiments will be performed on EUROfusion's different devices by international groups of physicists. The plan calls for the TCV to be used for almost two months in 2015 and early 2016, while it will also continue to operate for EPFL's own research goals, which are generally also aligned with the ºÚÁÏÉçapp roadmap.   The conference included a visit of the TCV, followed by a reception at the CRPP's site.   Read the full article on the EPFL . See also the report from .   --Photo: EPFL, Alain Herzog

?Greg Clark MP, UK Minister of State for Universities, Science & Cities, visited JET on Friday 23 January to find out how researchers and engineers are bringing fusion power closer to reality.

Mr Clark met staff from EUROfusion¡ªthe European consortium that coordinates the research on JET¡ªand CCFE, which operates the experiment on their behalf. He heard about how JET, as the world's largest magnetic fusion device, has a unique role in preparing for the ºÚÁÏÉçapp international research project, which when constructed will aim to prove that fusion can be a viable commercial-scale energy source. During his tour he met CCFE engineer Chris Fowler (pictured) in the JET Remote Handling Unit. Chris gave the Minister a demonstration of the advanced remote handling technology that allows operators to maintain and upgrade JET without the need to send people into the device. Remote handling and robotics was the main theme of the day, as Mr Clark officially started construction of Culham's new RACE centre with a groundbreaking ceremony.   Read the full article on the  website.

Like a new passenger jet or power plant, the National Spherical Torus Upgrade (NSTX-U) must be certified safe to operate. At the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the task of evaluating the safety of the $94 million upgrade belongs to the Activity Certification Committee (ACC), whose work remains ongoing. "This is a critical group," said Adam Cohen, deputy director for operations at the Laboratory. "When you have a complex activity like the upgrade you need a standing committee to guarantee that it will run safely."   For nearly two years the ACC has reviewed key components of the upgrade, which is scheduled for completion in March and will make the NSTX-U the most powerful spherical fusion facility on Earth. The group conducts hands-on inspections ¡ª or "walkdowns" ¡ª of all systems and subsystems and reviews training and pre-operational test procedures. "It's very vital and reassuring when the ACC says we're ready to go," said Mike Williams, director of engineering and infrastructure and associate director of the Laboratory.   Read the whole story on website.

?Take one stainless steel tokamak component, bake in the oven for seven hours at 980 degrees C till it's just right...et voil¨¤ ¡ª it's ready to go into the fusion device.

Not quite that simple, but this is the procedure to eliminate unwanted magnetism from materials that will be installed in the vessel of , the new UK fusion experiment that is being built at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE, UK).

Stainless steel is used because it is strong, cheap and can be non-magnetic. For MAST-Upgrade, the latter property is particularly important. In a tokamak, hot plasma fuel is confined using strong magnetic coils. So machine components with low magnetism are necessary to avoid perturbing the magnetic configurations and to achieve accurate measurement of the tokamak's magnetic field. However, stainless steel as supplied can be slightly magnetic. If left untreated this would cause stray magnetic fields when MAST-Upgrade is operated and also make magnetic measurements less accurate.

Baking the steel reorders its crystal structure to reduce the extent to which it becomes magnetised without significantly affecting its other properties. Over the past nine months, various parts have been heat-treated in ovens at the workshop at the Culham site.

"It's an effective method and although it might seem low-tech, there's a hi-tech reason behind it," explains CCFE Work Package Manager James Foster. "There isn't one 'recipe' that fits everything, so each component has a different formula ¡ª just like in baking at home."

Read the original article on the CCFE .

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The ºÚÁÏÉçapp Business Forum 2015 (IBF/15) will take place in Marseille, France, from 25 to 27 March 2015 with the participation and support of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp and the ºÚÁÏÉçapp Domestic Agencies (in particular the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy), the Industrial Liaison Officers (ILO) network, Agence ºÚÁÏÉçapp France, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Marseille-Provence. Just like the events held in 2007, 2011 and 2013, the fourth ºÚÁÏÉçapp Business Forum will provide industry with updated information on the ºÚÁÏÉçapp Project and on procurement procedures and forthcoming calls for tenders (2015-2016). It also aims to facilitate industrial partnerships¡ªaround the ºÚÁÏÉçapp project and beyond¡ªinside of Europe and internationally (for example: consortia to answer calls for tender, industrial partnerships, subcontracting, local support). IBF/15 will include: -          an industrial conference with presentations given by the ºÚÁÏÉçapp, Domestic Agencies and their main suppliers; -          one-to-one meetings on 26 and 27 March 2015; -          an optional program of technical tours on 25 March, including a visit of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp worksite; -          a welcome reception on 25 March in the evening and a gala dinner on 26 March at the venue. Registration for participation in IBF/15 is now open .

Visitors coming to the ºÚÁÏÉçapp site will from now on have one more attraction to discover: The mock-up of an ºÚÁÏÉçapp absolute valve seal and test rig, used to demonstrate the feasibility of the largest high pressure, all-metal valve, ever to be manufactured.

ºÚÁÏÉçapp will rely on two very powerful neutral beam injectors to heat the plasma to fusion temperatures. A third injector will also be installed¡ªthe diagnostic neutral beam injector¡ªwhich is used as a diagnostic for the plasma.

Each injector contains a vacuum vessel which needs to be vented to atmospheric pressure independently from the torus vacuum vessel in case of an incident. An absolute valve has thus been developed by the Swiss company VAT to "absolutely" isolate the vacuum in the torus from the neutral beam vacuum systems.

The valve uses seals made of stainless steel with silver coating to ensure high vacuum tightness up to a pressure differential of 0.1 MPa across the plate while maintaining a leak rate of less than 1¡¤10-8 Pa¡¤m3/s 1, but can withstand up to 0.2 MPa without incurring damage. With a nominal bore dimension of 1600 mm this absolute valve will be the largest ever manufactured, approximately five times bigger than existing products.

?Since the early days of project implementation in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France, ºÚÁÏÉçapp's closest neighbour and host¡ªthe French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA (Cadarache site)¡ªhas provided a number of services to the ºÚÁÏÉçapp.

These services are provided within the framework of the , which was signed in 2009 by the two entities as foreseen in the ºÚÁÏÉçapp Agreement and its Annex on Site Support. Regular meetings of the Site Liaison Committee, bringing together representatives from both organizations, are the occasion to discuss pending issues, exchange information and review actions underway.  On 10 December 2014, during the 10th Site Liaison Committee meeting, the ºÚÁÏÉçapp and the CEA signed two agreements.   1. Agreement on organizational modalities in the event of emergency situations Agreement which defines the information, support and response modalities between the CEA/Cadarache and the ºÚÁÏÉçapp in the event of any emergency liable to trigger, or not, emergency action plans. 2. Agreement related to the management of environmental aspects on the ºÚÁÏÉçapp site Agreement which defines the relations between the ºÚÁÏÉçapp and Agence Iter France (the CEA agency created to manage the French contribution to the project) related to the environmental commitments undertaken by Agence Iter France, such as the definition of an environmental management plan for the 1,200 hectares on and around the ºÚÁÏÉçapp site. This agreement entered into force on 10 December 2014 and is concluded for the duration of implementation of the environmental management plan (31 December 2032). An aerial view of the CEA-Cadarache site.

?The Korean Domestic Agency signed an important contract with Korean supplier Wonil Corp. for the ºÚÁÏÉçapp vacuum vessel gravity supports on 11 December 2014. Nine sets of gravity supports will be assembled under the lower ports to allow for the vacuum vessel's thermal expansion and to sustain loads in the radial, toroidal and vertical directions.

The supplier Wonil Corp. is a leading company in the heavy machining industry and has good experience with the ºÚÁÏÉçapp quality system through its participation in the procurement of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp blanket shield blocks and the assembly tooling. During the signing ceremony, the company strongly expressed its enthusiasm to carry out the mission and meet the demands of the vacuum vessel schedule and quality requirements for ºÚÁÏÉçapp.   - Ji-Min Song, ºÚÁÏÉçapp Korea

The December 2014 issue of Fusion in Europe focuses on work underway¡ªincluding novel types of simulations and materials research¡ªto support the early design of DEMO, the machine that will come after ºÚÁÏÉçapp. The issue also covers the reorganization of fusion research in Europe under the banner of EUROfusion and brings news from some of the experiments planned in European fusion facilities in support of ºÚÁÏÉçapp.

 

You can read the latest Fusion in Europe .

Assystem, a leading international group in the fields of engineering and innovation consultancy, is part of the consortium (Assystem, France; Atkins, UK; Empresados Agrupados, Spain; and Iosis, France) that was chosen in 2010 as architect/engineer for ºÚÁÏÉçapp site construction by the European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy (F4E).   The company is also contributing to the project by providing expertise in such domains as design, construction, machine assembly, and the manufacturing of high technology remote handling systems for the ºÚÁÏÉçapp divertor.   In December, Assystem released a series of three corporate videos highlighting its contributions to ºÚÁÏÉçapp. ºÚÁÏÉçapp 100 people attended a showing organized near the ºÚÁÏÉçapp site, including Assystem executives St¨¦phane Aubarbier (Executive Vice-President), Christian Jeanneau (Engineering and Operation Services Director General) and Bernard Blanc (Nuclear Business Development Manager); the mayor of Vinon-sur-Verdon, Claude Cheilan; Site, Buildings and Power Supplies Project Manager for the European Domestic Agency, Laurent Schmieder; and Michel Claessens, Head of Communication at the ºÚÁÏÉçapp.   The three videos can be viewed .

?The next two years in MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) may see fusion research embark on a landmark period of innovation. In his address to the NSE community in the inaugural Del Favero Doctoral Thesis Prize Lecture, Zach Hartwig PhD '14 not only described his group's research achievements but also explained why, in his view, fusion research should now be at the top of the department's agenda. Hartwig argued that U.S. fusion research, which has been focused on physics for the past two decades, now needs to incorporate more attention to engineering, utility integration, and economics as it transitions to building devices that will produce energy ¡ª and that this can be achieved by leveraging the tremendous engineering and systems expertise of NSE.

Read the whole article on the MIT News .

On 5 December 2014, Osamu Motojima, Director-General of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp, opened a day-long international workshop on remuneration. Organized by ºÚÁÏÉçapp's Human Resources Division, the workshop gathered over 40 participants from international organizations.

The ºÚÁÏÉçapp has been part of a coordinated system network of international organizations since 2008 and was pleased to act as host on this important occasion. The network organizes regular workshops for human resource professionals and legal specialists in the fields of remuneration and pension, enabling international organizations to share their experience and forge valuable contacts. 

Inside of ºÚÁÏÉçapp's large D-shaped toroidal field coils, the stacked layers of conductor will be held in place by radial plates¡ªlarge steel structures with grooves machined on either side.   In 2012, the European Domestic Agency awarded a EUR 160 million contract for the fabrication of 70 radial plates to a French-Italian consortium, CNIM (France)-SIMIC (Italy) and manufacturing is currently underway.   In this promotional video produced by CNIM, the camera takes us inside the 3,000 m2 factory in Toulon, France that was specially constructed for CNIM's share of the radial plate contract. One radial plate comes off of the manufacturing line per month, thanks to a team of 50 skilled employees organized in three shifts.   Three years of investment in R&D and industrial processes and the construction of a 9 x 36 metre machining centre were necessary to perfect the highly technological machining and welding of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp radial plates.   View the CNIM video .