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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
J. A. Leuer, B. J. Xiao, D. A. Humphreys, M. L. Walker, A. W. Hyatt, G. L. Jackson, D. Mueller, B. G. Penaflor, D. A. Piglowski, R. D. Johnson, A. S. Welander, Q. P. Yuan, H. Z. Wang, J. R. Luo, EAST Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 57 | Number 1 | January 2010 | Pages 48-65
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A9268
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) was the first shaped tokamak of mega-ampere scale to achieve plasma utilizing a fully superconducting poloidal field coil system, and it is addressing ITER relevant superconducting constraints associated with the breakdown, plasma formation, and initial plasma current ramp. Electric field production for plasma start-up is severely limited in fully superconducting machines as a consequence of constraints associated with coil and lead voltages and eddy current heating in the superconducting coils. Such constraints motivate the use of electromagnetic modeling codes to design start-up scenarios for these devices. The successful first plasma campaign of the EAST superconducting tokamak was greatly facilitated by extensive and careful planning, development of appropriate modeling, simulation and diagnostic tools, a highly flexible plasma control system, and a highly experienced international collaboration team. We describe the design and modeling tools used to develop the first plasma scenario along with results of their application in the start-up campaign. Control design tools and plasma control algorithms utilized during the first campaign are discussed. Key physics, engineering, and operations results of the first plasma campaign are presented, including observations relevant to future devices such as ITER.