Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. A team of European scientists has published findings revealing a better understanding of plasma dynamics allowing tokamak designs to take another step forward. In tokamak reactors, a catastrophic effect can occur known as runaway electrons. In these scenarios, free electrons in the plasma can form coherent currents of as much as one million amperes. These electron currents have the potential to breach the plasma containment fields and cause serious damage to the reactor. In a recent Letter to Physical Review, the team describe a method for countering such rogue currents thereby protecting the reactor from damage. Their method entails injecting neon (atomic number 10) or argon […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. After 6.3 sextillion (6.3×10^21) CPU cycles of the Titan super computer running at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a team of researchers has successfully simulated the spontaneous transition of turbulence at the edge of a fusion plasma from low confinement mode (L-mode) magnetic containment to high confinement mode (H-mode). It took three days for Titan to run this simulation. The simulation itself was modeling a mere 270 microseconds of real time plasma behavior. U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) physicists utilized 90 percent of Titan’s capacity during that three-day time-slot. The Titan machine is the nation’s most powerful supercomputer for […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. Last fall Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Fusion (LPP Fusion) Chief Scientist Eric Lerner was the featured speaker for the New York City Physics and Astronomy Meetup groups. Fortunately, the event was captured on video and recently released as a YouTube video series named ”The New Race to Fusion.” Mr. Lerner spoke to the assembled groups for over an hour on the current state of fusion research including his own. He also touched on the background of several ongoing fusion efforts, as well as their best fusion results. Most interesting were the comparisons made between these current outcomes and those of his own Focus Fusion-1 device. Based on a […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. MIT Assistant Professor Zach Hartwig is attempting to leverage his work with new high-temperature superconducting magnets to improve many endeavors in high energy physics. His primary focus using these new magnets aims to improve the prospects for viable fusion power. Magnetic confinement nuclear fusion reactors depend on strong magnetic fields. Applying new magnet technologies that produce fields with record strength will make smaller reactors possible. These smaller reactors will still be able to yield output power equal to the largest reactors currently being built. REBCO (a single-crystal material composed of yttrium, barium, copper, oxygen and other elements) is a new superconducting material that has the potential […]
Read More