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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
T. D. Akhmetov, V. I. Davydenko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 121-125
Oral Presentations | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A11963835
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We discuss MHD stability of the plasma in the completely axisymmetric end system of AMBAL-M and suggest a physical model to interpret the experimental results. Measurement of the radial plasma pressure profile in the semicusp using a local magnetic probe allowed estimation of the stability safety factor of the end system plasma which occurred to be greater than 3÷4. Gas puffing into the semicusp increases the plasma pressure in this region and hence enhances stability. To explain the observed MHD stability of the end mirror plasma when the MHD stabilizer — semicusp was switched off and the average field line curvature was unfavorable, a model was proposed which assumes that the plasma at the periphery had an electric contact with a limiter. As a result, the potential of flute perturbations vanishes at the plasma periphery. In this case finite Larmor radius effects may stabilize the most dangerous first (global) azimuthal mode because of nonlinear dependence of plasma perturbations on radius.