Progress Toward Attractive Stellarators

Progress Toward Attractive Stellarators
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

The quasi-axisymmetric stellarator (QAS) concept offers a promising path to a more compact stellarator reactor, closer in linear dimensions to tokamak reactors than previous stellarator designs. Concept improvements are needed, however, to make it more maintainable and more compatible with high plant availability. Using the ARIES-CS design as a starting point, compact stellarator designs with improved maintenance characteristics have been developed. While the ARIES-CS features a through-the-port maintenance scheme, we have investigated configuration changes to enable a sector-maintenance approach, as envisioned for example in ARIES AT. Three approaches are reported. The first is to make tradeoffs within the QAS design space, giving greater emphasis to maintainability criteria. The second approach is to improve the optimization tools to more accurately and efficiently target the physics properties of importance. The third is to employ a hybrid coil topology, so that the plasma shaping functions of the main coils are shared more optimally, either with passive conductors made of high-temperature superconductor or with local compensation coils, allowing the main coils to become simpler. Optimization tools are being improved to test these approaches.

Stellarator Approach to Fusion Plasma Confinement

Stellarator Approach to Fusion Plasma Confinement
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 1985
Genre:
ISBN:

The stellarator is a toroidal fusion plasma confinement device with nested magnetic flux surfaces. The required twist of the field lines is produced by external helical coils rather than by plasma current, as in a tokamak. Stellarator devices are attractive fusion reactor candidates precisely because they offer the prospect of steady-state operation without plasma current. In the last few years the excellent results achieved with currentless stellarator plasmas of modest minor radius (10 to 20 cm) at Kyoto University (Japan) and the Max Planck Institute (West Germany) have made the stellarator second only to the tokamak in its progress toward fusion breakeven, with temperatures T/sub e/, T/sub i/ approx. 1 KeV, Lawson products n tau approx. 2 to 5 x 1012 cm−3.s, and volume-averaged beta values approx. = 2%. The Advanced Toroidal Facility (ATF), now under construction at Oak Ridge Natioal Laboratory (ORNL) and scheduled to operate in 1986, represents a significant advance in stellarator research, with a plasma major radius of 2.1 m, an average minor radius of 0.3 m, and a magnetic field of 2 T for 5 s or 1 T at steady state. ATF replaces the Impurity Study Experiment (ISX-B) tokamak at ORNL and will use the ISX-B heating and diagnostic system.

Stellarator and Heliotron Devices

Stellarator and Heliotron Devices
Author: Masahiro Wakatani
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 462
Release: 1998
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780195078312

This monograph describes plasma physics for magnetic confinement of high temperature plasmas in nonaxisymmetric toroidal magnetic fields or stellarators. The techniques are aimed at controlling nuclear fusion for continuous energy production. While the focus is on the nonaxisymmetric toroidal field, or heliotron, developed at Kyoto University, the physics applies equally to other stellarators and axisymmetric tokamaks. The author covers all aspects of magnetic confinement, formation of magnetic surfaces, magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and stability, single charged particle confinement, neoclassical transport and plasma heating. He also reviews recent experiments and the prospects for the next generation of devices.

Fusion Physics

Fusion Physics
Author: MITSURU KIKUCHI
Publisher: International Atomic Energy
Total Pages: 1158
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN:

Humans do not live by bread alone. Physically we are puny creatures with limited prowess, but with unlimited dreams. We see a mountain and want to move it to carve out a path for ourselves. We see a river and want to tame it so that it irrigates our fields. We see a star and want to fly to its planets to secure a future for our progeny. For all this, we need a genie who will do our bidding at a flip of our fingers. Energy is such a genie. Modern humans need energy and lots of it to live a life of comfort. In fact, the quality of life in different regions of the world can be directly correlated with the per capita use of energy [1.1–1.5]. In this regard, the human development index (HDI) of various countries based on various reports by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [1.6] (Fig. 1.1), which is a parameter measuring the quality of life in a given part of the world, is directly determined by the amount of per capita electricity consumption. Most of the developing world (~5 billion people) is crawling up the UN curve of HDI versus per capita electricity consumption, from abysmally low values of today towards the average of the whole world and eventually towards the average of the developed world. This translates into a massive energy hunger for the globe as a whole. It has been estimated that by the year 2050, the global electricity demand will go up by a factor of up to 3 in a high growth scenario [1.7–1.9]. The requirements beyond 2050 go up even higher.