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One of the most spectacular operations ever performed on the ������app site was the lifting of the Assembly Hall roof structure during the night of 10 to 11 September 2015.

Hoisting the 700-ton structure to a height of 60 metres was a long and delicate operation monitored and controlled by computer. This , produced by the companies and organizations involved in the operation, captures the technical achievement as it unfolded.

​The ������app vacuum vessel is composed of nine sectors, two of which are being procured by Korea and seven by Europe.

In Italy, production of a first sector has begun at the AMW consortium (Ansaldo - Mangiarotti - Walter Tosto). Click to watch a video of manufacturing progress at AMW.

​The editorial board of the journal Nuclear Fusion has selected Rob Goldston, a fusion researcher and Princeton University professor of astrophysical sciences, as winner of the 2015 Nuclear Fusion Award. The award recognizes Goldston's paper describing a new model for estimating the width of the scrape-off layer — the hot plasma that is exhausted in fusion facilities called tokamaks — as the most outstanding paper published by the journal in 2012.

The journal will present the honor, which includes an engraved award, a certificate and $2,500, during the 2016 Fusion Energy Conference in Kyoto, Japan.

On receiving the reward Goldston said, "It is a great pleasure to win this scientific award for a paper written three years after I stepped down from my leadership post at PPPL. It is fun to be back in the fray working with top-quality scientists, helping to make sense of very important, and very carefully measured, data."

Read the full article on the PPPL .

​

������app launched its new website this week! A techier look to go with our ultra-hi-tech mission. For all those friends who ask you over lunch: "How does magnetic confinement fusion work — really?" You now have a place to point them to. And don't miss the machine pages! If you find yourself swooning over a cryostat or a divertor in 3D, you're not alone ...

The ramp-up time for achieving a fusion reaction inside a tokamak machine varies, depending on a certain number of boundary conditions such as volume, temperature and density and, of course, the fuels injected.   In the auditorium of the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, at Prague's Czech Technical University, all the variables were in place on Sunday night—drink, food, room temperature and body density—and so it took less than two minutes after the official opening of this year's FuseNet PhD event before the room started to buzz and the volume tripled. The only thing missing to make the molecules fuse on the dance floor was the music, which soon set in very vibrantly in form of the Apples, a local female rock band.   With a record participation of 130 students, the fifth edition of the FuseNet PhD event is off to an enthusiastic start. Physicist Richard Pitts, from the ������app, opened the scientific part of the program on Monday 16 November with an overview of the ������app Project, assuring those assembled in the auditorium that they were entering the discipline at exactly the right time. "You are at the golden age of fusion."    The event, organized each year under the umbrella of the association with the financial support of , brings together a large fraction of the PhD students in Europe that work in the fields of fusion science and engineering. Young researchers get the opportunity to share their ideas, learn from each other's experiences and develop a network of contacts.   "We are seeing some very high quality research," said Jean-Marie Noterdaeme from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching and Head of the Advisory Board of the European Erasmus Mundus program.   Follow the three-day event through the dedicated FuseNet .   -- Sabina Griffith

The Monaco ������app International Fusion Energy Days (MIIFED) and the ������app Business Forum (IBF) 2016 will take place in Monaco from 8 to 11 February 2016. It will be the sole event dedicated to industrial opportunities at ������app in 2016. Over three days, participants will have the opportunity to learn about progress achieved so far, the current status of ������app construction and manufacturing, and upcoming business opportunities. Through B2B and B2C meetings, the event will also facilitate networking between companies and the exploration of partnership opportunities in the context of the technological challenges of ������app. An industrial and R&D exhibition will also be staged. On 11 February, delegates will have the option to visit the ������app worksite as well as two industrial sites where ������app component manufacturing is in progress (Simic S.p.A and Cnim).

For the first time, this international event will combine an ������app Business Forum with the MIIFED international event. The rationale is to facilitate productive interaction between industry and fusion laboratories from the seven ������app Members and to foster collaboration between those actors, especially in technical areas where strong cooperation is required such as heating systems, diagnostics or remote handling systems.

Registration has started! Come and join us! This international conference offers an excellent opportunity for exchanging views and experiences and forming valuable international business relationships for the ������app program and beyond. From 8 to 11 February, we will bring you into contact with high-level decision makers, international industrialists, experienced researchers and ������app staff, giving you plenty of opportunity to meet reliable partners for your core business. Join us at MIIFED-IBF 2016 in Monaco, under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II. Please register .

​Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who died on 10 November at age 96, played an essential but little-known role in the decision to site the large European tokamak in Culham, UK.

In the mid-1970s, the parties involved in the project were facing the difficult task of deciding where to build the ground-breaking machine. Four sites were volunteering: Culham in the UK; Garching in Germany; Cadarache in France and Ispra in Italy. As neither Ispra, nor at the time Cadarache, hosted a fusion research infrastructure that could support the new project, the choice soon narrowed to Culham and Garching. Political discussions to decide between the two had been dragging on for almost two years when, on 17 October 1977, the conclusion of a tragic event contributed to breaking the deadlock. Five days earlier, terrorists had hijacked a Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa airliner to eventually land it in Mogadishu, Somalia. Eighty-six passengers were held hostage; one crew member had been killed. The German chancellor decided to have the airliner stormed by special troops. The successful operation, with no passengers injured, was a political triumph for Schmidt. The German special troops had benefitted from key intelligence and special equipment from the British Special Air Service, who had sent observers to Mogadishu. The following day, a meeting was scheduled in Bonn between Schmidt and the British Prime Minister James Callaghan. The atmosphere was one of relief and gratefulness. In an obliging gesture, Schmidt accepted to be more accommodating on the JET siting issue. One week later, the European partners all agreed on building JET at .

Nuclear  is an attractive option for creating , in principle using the same reactions found at the centre of stars to generate large quantities of power without carbon emissions.

But creating those conditions on Earth is difficult, and part of the problem is finding the correct materials to contain the fierce reactions.

The most common approach is to magnetically contain the high-energy particles, known as a plasma, in a tight circle running through the centre of a giant metal torus. This set-up is employed at the JET facility in Culham, just outside Oxford, as well as in the forthcoming ������app experiment in the south of France.

But even constrained by large magnetic fields, the plasma still subjects the walls of the vessel, likely to be made of tungsten, to extreme conditions.

Oxford University researchers, along with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, have been carrying out experiments to investigate the effect of radiation on the properties of the material used in the walls and on the materials' thermal conductivity.

Read the full article on the PhysOrg .

After nearly seven years as deputy director for operations at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Adam Cohen has been named Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Energy in Washington D.C. He succeeds Michael Knotek, who retired 30 September.   "I am very excited and humbled by the opportunity to take on this role," Cohen said. "I look forward to working with Secretary [Ernest] Moniz, Under Secretary [Lynn] Orr and all within the department, as well as across the complex, in supporting the research mission of the department and helping to ensure the vitality of the national laboratories."   Cohen's contributions to the Laboratory have been invaluable, said A.J. Stewart Smith, Princeton University vice-president for PPPL. "He evolved the management structure that we all enjoy today," Smith said. "He has been a superb colleague and will be sorely missed."   At PPPL, which recently completed construction of the $94 million National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, the Laboratory's major fusion experiment, Cohen has played many critical roles. As deputy director for operations, he was in charge of the upgrade and ran the indirect — or non-research — side of the Laboratory, whose departments range from engineering and infrastructure to information technology. He recently headed preparation of the Campus Plan, a 10-year program for modernizing the Laboratory whose first steps are under way, and set the Lab on its current path to a business system upgrade that will replace all financial software by 2018.   Cohen will make use of his fusion experience by heading the U.S. delegation to ������app, the international fusion experiment that is under construction in France. His contact with ������app will be at the international level; he will not be directly involved in the US ������app Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

 

Read the full article on PPPL .

A new video clip produced by the European Domestic Agency revisits the installation of first four on-site transformers.

A total power of 1200 MVA will be made available to the ������app installation through two networks—the pulsed power electrical network (PPEN) that services the AC/DC converters, the heating and current drive systems, and the system for reactive power compensation, and the steady state electrical network (SSEN) which will provide power to the cryogenic and cooling water systems, the tritium plant and general infrastructure.   Four of seven transformers have been installed on the ������app site.   Watch the clip on the European Domestic agency .

​Mechanical Engineer Jeff Doody from MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) received a "Best Paper Award" on 9 October at the COMSOL Conference 2015. The paper, "Structural Analysis of the Advanced Divertor eXperiment's Proposed Vacuum Vessel," describes how Doody used COMSOL Multiphysics modeling software to predict loads and stresses on the vacuum vessel in the initial design for the , a proposed high field, high-power-density fusion tokamak.

Collaborating with him at the PSFC were Chief Mechanical Engineer Rui Viera, Senior Research Scientist Brian LaBombard, Principal Research Scientist Bob Granetz, Mechanical Design and Fabrication Specialist Rick Leccacorvi, and Principal Research Engineer Jim Irby.

Photo: Mechanical Engineer Jeff Doody of ​MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Read the whole article on the PSFC website.

​The complex puzzle that makes up MAST Upgrade's main plasma heating system is well on the way to completion at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the UK.

The neutral beam injection system will provide most of the heating power for MAST Upgrade (around 5 megawatts). It works by firing fast-moving neutral particles into the plasma, where their motion is transferred into heat.

Recent work has focused on the system's bend magnets and ion dump assemblies. These components steer stray charged particles away from the heating beam and absorb their energy, which can be as much as 12 megawatts per square metre — much more than the loads on spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere.

The bend magnets were delivered to site during the summer and passed acceptance testing before undergoing a trial fit in the neutral beam injection tanks to check their alignment. Meanwhile, the build of the welded ion dump assemblies has proceeded well throughout the year.

By the end of 2015, the pre-assembly of these components will be complete, leaving them ready for installation into the tanks. The re-build of the neutral beam injection system will take place in 2016.

Read the original article on CCFE's .

Operation since 1988, the CEA-Euratom tokamak Tore Supra (France) is undergoing a major transformation in order to serve as a test bench for ������app—the WEST project.   Equipped with a new, actively-cooled tungsten divertor, WEST will test tungsten technology, acquire data on metal fatigue, and explore the component boundary conditions in advance of ������app.   As early as 2016 the machine will be ready to test the first samples of plasma-facing units—an arrangement of small tungsten blocks that, once assembled, will form the new divertor.   The recent installation of the lower divertor coil box marked an important step in this direction. © Christophe Roux CEA-IRFM   Visit the WEST website .  

In recognition of his outstanding contributions in physics, Professor Dr Thomas Sunn Pedersen from the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics, IPP, has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).   With this distinction his colleagues in the Plasma Physics Section of APS are honouring in particular "his seminal studies of pure electron plasmas in a stellarators," according to the Fellowship Certificate, and for "active stabilization of resistive wall modes"—a special kind of plasma instability in a tokamak.

The objective of the American Physical Society is to extend physical knowledge, support physicists worldwide, and promote international cooperation. The venerable society, based in Maryland, US, was established in 1899 and has a present membership of 40,000. No more than half a percent of the members may be elected Fellow.   Read the full report on the IPP .

​The European Domestic Agency for ������app, , announced on 21 October that Johannes Schwemmer, from Germany, has been appointed as its new Executive Director.

Fusion for Energy is the European Union's Joint Undertaking for ������app and the Development of Fusion Energy. The organization was created under the Euratom Treaty by a decision of the Council of the European Union in order to provide Europe's contribution to ������app, to support fusion research and development initiatives through the  (signed with Japan), and to contribute down the road to the construction of demonstration fusion reactors.

Johannes Schwemmer was selected by the Fusion for Energy Governing Board from a list of candidates proposed by the European Commission after an open competition, following a publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

Read the full announcement on the European Domestic Agency's .

Korea's National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) celebrated its tenth anniversary on 1 October in the presence of distinguished guests Chairman Sangchun Lee of the National Research Council of Science and Technology and Deputy Minister Jaemun Park of the Ministry of Science ICT and Future Planning (MSIP).

Since NFRI's inception in 2005, the institute has successfully brought the KSTAR tokamak to the level of a world-class superconducting fusion device (2007), celebrated its first plasma (2008) and surpassed the 10,000th plasma experiment mark (2014), testifying to the stability of the device. KSTAR is now playing an important role by running experiments in support of ������app.

 During the ceremony, participants from industry, academia and national research institutes reflected on the 20-year effort in Korea toward the development of fusion energy. Awards of recognition were granted to distinguished contributors and a certification plaque was awarded to KSTAR, selected as one of the Top 70 scientific and technological achievements in the country. "With the passion and confidence that has brought us so far during the past decade," said NFRI Director-General Keeman Kim, "we will continue to strive forward to bring Korea to the top when it comes to fusion energy commercialization."

A 14-minute documentary on ������app aired on Russia's TV Channel 24 on Saturday 17 October.

The documentary brings the viewer into the heart of ������app construction for an update of work underway on the lower levels of the Tokamak Complex, future home to the 23,000-ton ������app machine. The team of journalists also travels to the European winding facility in La Spezia, Italy (ASG Superconductors) to investigate the complexities of ������app engineering and manufacturing.   At La Spezia, Russian-produced niobium-tin superconductor is integrated through a complex series of steps into ������app's giant toroidal field magnets.   Watch "Horizons of the atom"  (in Russian).

​PPPL presented its 2015 outstanding research awards to engineer Charles Neumeyer and physicist Rajesh Maingi on 5 October.

Neumeyer received the Kaul Foundation Prize for "the design analysis and overall management of the US contributions to the steady state electric network that will supply power to ������app. This culminated in the successful delivery of the first major plant components to ������app, establishing procedures for all future shipments of ������app components."

This accomplishment was made possible in part by the strong and trusting relationship that was established years ago between Neumeyer and the present members of the ������app "electricians".

"In this long venture, the human dimension was essential", says Joël Hourtoule, ������app Electrical Power Distribution section leader.

Maingi received the Distinguished Research Fellow award for "seminal research and program leadership in tokamak boundary and divertor physics."

Read more on the  website.

​In a press release issued on 6 October, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) announced the successful testing of the ������app central solenoid conductor under conditions comparable to ������app operation.

The tests, which were carried out at a JAEA test facility in Naka, Japan, by an international team, measured the performance of the central solenoid conductor under the same magnetic field and strain that it will face in the ������app machine. Results showed high performance.

According to Procurement Arrangements signed with the ������app, the central solenoid will be wound in the US from niobium-tin conductor produced in Japan.

The positive test results are a significant milestone on the road to producing the 1,000-metric-ton electromagnet that will allow a powerful current to be induced in the ������app plasma and maintained during long plasma pulses.

The JAEA press release is available here (in Japanese).

​The European Domestic Agency for ������app has published a highlights document that retraces one year of activity and progress. Contract signatures, industrial achievements, events, construction milestones and fusion R&D activities are gathered in an illustrated 50-page brochure that is downloadable .

Visit the European Domestic Agency for more information.