ºÚÁÏÉçapp

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—the diagnostic neutral beam injector—which 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.

​The Governing Board of the European Domestic Agency for ºÚÁÏÉçapp Fusion for Energy (F4E) has decided to appoint Dr Pietro Barabaschi as Acting Director of F4E with effect from 1 March 2015 until a new Director takes up duties. The Governing Board has also agreed to initiate the process to recruit a new Director.

Dr Barabaschi will replace the outgoing Director, Professor Henrik Bindslev, who will leave F4E on 28 February 2015. Professor Bindslev has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark.

The Chair of the Governing Board, Mr Stuart Ward, expressed, on behalf of its members, his gratitude to Professor Henrik Bindslev for the vision and leadership that he has demonstrated as the Director of F4E, which manages Europe's contribution to ºÚÁÏÉçapp and the Broader Approach projects with Japan.

Dr Barabaschi has been head of F4E's Broader Fusion Development Department at Garching, Germany, since 2008. An electrical engineer, he started his career in the JET project. In 1992 he joined the ºÚÁÏÉçapp Joint Central Team in San Diego and by 2006 he was the deputy to the Project Leader as well as head of the Design Integration Division of the ºÚÁÏÉçapp International Team at Garching.

See the original story on the F4E .