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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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A more open future for nuclear research
A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.
T.D. Akhmetov, V.S. Belkin, I.O. Bespamyatnov, V.I. Davydenko, G.I. Dimov, Yu.V. Kovalenko, A.S. Krivenko, P.A. Potashov, V.V. Razorenov, V.B. Reva, V. Ya. Savkin, G.I. Shulzhenko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 1 | January 2003 | Pages 58-62
Overview | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A11963563
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
At present the axisymmetric ambipolar mirror trap AMBAL-M consists of a central solenoid which is attached to a plugging and MHD stabilizing end system and is filled from the other end by a plasma stream generated by a gas-discharge source. In the first experiments we obtained the plasma in the solenoid with ~0.4 m diameter, density ~6·1012cm−3, electron temperature ~50 eV, and ion energy ~250 eV. In order to enhance the plasma flow from the source into the solenoid, the distance between the entrance throat of the solenoid and the plasma source was gradually decreased, and the plasma density was increased to ~2·1013 cm−3. Installation of a second source from the opposite end of the machine allowed us to increase the plasma density up to ~2.5·1013 cm−3 in the solenoid and up to ~1.5·1013 cm−3 in the mirror trap of the end system. For better propagation of the plasma stream from the second source into the trap the coil of the MHD-stabilizer semicusp was switched in the same direction as all other coils, thus the magnetic configuration consisted of a series of simple mirrors. However, the plasma remained MHD stable owing to its line-tying to conducting ends. When this line-tying broke during the fast cut-off of the source current, the density profile in the solenoid abruptly rearranged pointing to possible MHD activity, and independently of the initial shape it became almost flat up to the limiter.
Further enhancement of the plasma density was achieved using hydrogen puffing into the solenoid plasma while only the first source was functioning. Two methods of gas puffing were used – through a ceramic tube to the solenoid axis and into a gas-box surrounding the plasma. Optimization of the hydrogen puffing rate led to the density increase up to ~ 6·1013 cm−3 without noticeable degradation of the ion temperature which remained at a high level of ~200 eV (the ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic field pressure β~0.1), which is provided by stochastic ion heating from electrostatic oscillations when the source is working. The obtained solenoid plasma density is the highest one achieved in ambipolar mirror traps.
