Stellarator

Wendelstein 7-X Stellarator Restarting

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator reactor at Greifswald is restarting for a second round of experiments. These tests are slated for higher temperatures now that reactor modifications are complete. The reactor changes will also allow for longer plasma confinement times. An important goal of this round of experimentation centers on the proper functioning of ten plasma divertors. After an initial round of shakedown tests, the Wendelstein 7-X went offline last year. This downtime allowed for more construction to take place. Upgrades to instrumentation occurred. The metal walls of the reaction chamber were lined with over 8,000 graphite tiles. These tiles protect the metal walls from the extreme plasma temperatures. The tiles will allow […]

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More Stellarator News

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Recently we posted an update on the Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (MPIPP) in Greifswald Germany. This week sees more news on the stellarator front. Southwest Jiaotong University announced plans to build a stellarator fusion reactor. This undertaking will be in partnership with Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS). NIFS already operates a similar reactor in Japan called the Large Helical Device. NIFS and Southwest Jiaotong University will design, implement and construct, plasma heating, technical diagnostics and ultimately conduct plasma experiments. They will then introduce the helical device to be called CFQS (Chinese First Quasi-axisymmetric Stellarator). This announcement is on the heels of another […]

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Stellarator News

Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. At the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (MPIPP) in Greifswald Germany, a team of scientists and engineers continue working to bring the worlds largest stellarator online. A stellarator is a type of toroidal magnetic confinement fusion reactor. The most common form of toroidal fusion reactor is a tokamak. Tokamaks are shaped like ordinary doughnuts. Stellarators retain the basic doughnut shape but twists its way around to make the loop. This design, while far more complex, allows physicists to craft more ideal magnetic confinement fields. The machine under construction in Germany is called the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). The W7-X was first powered up at the end […]

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