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A tokamak is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. As of 2016, it was the leading candidate for a practical fusion reactor. The word "tokamak" is derived from a Russian acronym meaning "toroidal chamber with magnetic coils".
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known for the development of the stellarator and tokamak designs, along with numerous fundamental advances in plasma physics and the exploration of many other plasma confinement concepts.
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2023, no device has reached net power.
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA, is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. The CEA maintains a cross-disciplinary culture of engineers and researchers, building on the synergies between fundamental and technological research.
TFR may refer to:
Fontenay-aux-Roses is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 8.6 km (5.3 mi) from the center of Paris.
The T-15 is a Russian nuclear fusion research reactor located at the Kurchatov Institute, which is based on the (Soviet-invented) tokamak design. It was the first industrial prototype fusion reactor to use superconducting magnets to control the plasma. These enormous superconducting magnets confined the plasma the reactor produced, but failed to sustain it for more than just a few seconds. Despite not being immediately applicable, this new technological advancement proved to the USSR that they were on the right path. In the original shape, a toroidal chamber design, it had a major radius of 2.43 m and minor radius 0.7 m.
Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.
Cadarache is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes the CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of the 10 research centres of the French Commission of Atomic and Alternative Energies.
Alcator C-Mod was a tokamak that operated between 1991 and 2016 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Notable for its high toroidal magnetic field, Alcator C-Mod holds the world record for volume averaged plasma pressure in a magnetically confined fusion device. Until its shutdown in 2016, it was one of the major fusion research facilities in the United States.
The Enormous Toroidal Plasma Device (ETPD) is an experimental physics device housed at the Basic Plasma Science Facility at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It previously operated as the Electric Tokamak (ET) between 1999 and 2006 and was noted for being the world's largest tokamak before being decommissioned due to the lack of support and funding. The machine was renamed to ETPD in 2009. At present, the machine is undergoing upgrades to be re-purposed into a general laboratory for experimental plasma physics research.
The term runaway electrons (RE) is used to denote electrons that undergo free fall acceleration into the realm of relativistic particles. REs may be classified as thermal or relativistic. The study of runaway electrons is thought to be fundamental to our understanding of High-Energy Atmospheric Physics. They are also seen in tokamak fusion devices, where they can damage the reactors.
The Fort de Châtillon was a fortification located about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Paris in the communes of Châtillon-sous-Bagneux and Fontenay-aux-Roses. It was built in 1874 and was razed beginning in 1957, making way for expansion of the French nuclear research facility at Fontenay-aux-Roses.
The Tandem Mirror Experiment was a magnetic mirror machine operated from 1979 to 1987 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It was the first large-scale machine to test the "tandem mirror" concept in which two mirrors trapped a large volume of plasma between them in an effort to increase the efficiency of the reactor.
The Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications (HIDRA) is a medium-sized toroidal magnetic fusion device housed in the Nuclear Radiation Laboratory and operated by the Center for Plasma-Material Interactions (CPMI) within the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, United States. HIDRA had its first plasma at the end of April 2016 and started experimental campaigns by December of that year. HIDRA is the former WEGA classical stellarator that was operated at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald Germany from 2001 to 2013.
The Princeton Large Torus, was an early tokamak built at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). It was one of the first large scale tokamak machines, and among the most powerful in terms of current and magnetic fields. Originally built to demonstrate that larger devices would have better confinement times, it was later modified to perform heating of the plasma fuel, a requirement of any practical fusion power device.
Ksenia Aleksandrovna Razumova is a Russian physicist. She graduated from the Physical Faculty of Moscow University in 1955 and took a position at the then called Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, then USSR. She defended her Ph.D. in 1966, was Candidate in Physical and Mathematical sciences in 1967, and became Doctor of Sciences in 1984. She is laboratory head at the Institute of Nuclear Fusion, Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute. Since the beginning she is actively involved plasma physics in research on the tokamak line of Magnetic confinement fusion.
The Dreicer field is the critical electric field above which electrons in a collisional plasma can be accelerated to become runaway electrons. It was named after Harry Dreicer who derived the expression in 1959 and expanded on the concept in 1960. The Dreicer field is an important parameter in the study of tokamaks to suppress runaway generation in nuclear fusion.
Donato Palumbo was an Italian physicist best known as the leader of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) fusion research program from its formation in 1958 to his retirement in 1986. He was a key force in the development of the tokamak during the 1970s and 80s, contributing several papers on plasma confinement in these devices and leading the JET fusion reactor program, which as of 2021, retains the record for the closest approach to breakeven, the ratio between the produced fusion power and the power used to heat it. He is referred to as the founding father of the European fusion program.
References
- ↑ Braams, C.M.; Stot, P.E. (2002-06-20). Nuclear Fusion: Half a Century of Magnetic Confinement Fusion Research. The Institute of Physics. ISBN 9781420033786.
- ↑ Runaway electrons and anomalous scattering of electrons trapped in local troughs of TFR Tokamak (Technical report). Euratom-CEA. December 1975.
