Progress toward ITER’s First Plasma

Abstract

ITER reached 50% completion of the work required to achieve First Plasma in November 2017. Progress has been made on ITER infrastructure since the 2016 FEC, most visibly the construction of many key buildings. The key parts of the tokamak assembly building and the tokamak bioshield have been completed. The tokamak building itself will be ready for equipment in 2020. The cryogenic plant and the magnet power supply buildings are complete, and these systems begin commissioning in 2019. The power conversion and distribution area is complete and the component cooling water system building has started construction. Manufacturing of the basic components of the ITER tokamak is also proceeding well. The base and lower cylinder of the cryostat have been assembled on the ITER site. The first modules of the central solenoid and of the six poloidal field coils have been wound. The first winding packs of the toroidal field magnets are complete, as are the first casings, which have been verified to meet the high tolerances required. The first vacuum vessel sector is near completion and demonstrated to meet strict tolerances. The Heating and Current Drive systems (NB, ECH and ICH) are in the final design phase. The sequence of complementary ITER operation from First Plasma (FP) to the achievement of the Q = 10 and Q = 5 project goals has been adapted to the Staged Approach to construction, a stepwise installation of all systems. The ITER Research Plan has been revised in 2017 to be consistent with the systems available in each phase. Physics studies focus on the Disruption Mitigation System, design of the ITER tungsten divertor, and modelling of ITER plasma scenarios. Modelling concentrates on the initial phases of the Research Plan and on the Q = 10 scenario, especially plasma termination.

A Data-Assimilation Based Method for Equilibrium Reconstruction of Magnetic Fusion Plasma and its Application to Reversed Field Pinch

“…where B ϕ0 , n 0 , T 0 are given as B ϕ0 = 0.1 T, n 0 = 10 19 m −3 and T 0 = 10 6 K, respectively. In the present numerical experiment, the artificial data m 1 , m 2 , • • • , m 6 are obtained by giving the value of p true as [4,3,3,5,4,3] t . We apply the reconstruction algorithm with starting from some different initial guesses.…”

“…Aiming at dealing not only with axisymmetric toroidal plasmas but also with non-axisymmetric toroidal plasmas and to plasmas described by some future perspective model, we formulate the problems of equilibrium reconstruction in generalized forms. We consider a system described by the following partial differential equation in the three dimensional space R 3 .…”

“…where ψ k ∈ R is the scalar quantity characterizing the equilibrium state of the fusion plasma, L k is a partial differential operator with respect to the spatial variable x including high order partial derivatives. D ⊂ R 3 is an open region in which the scalar function…”

“…Nuclear fusion is one of the candidates for the solution, and development of fusion reactor has been in progress to realize electric energy production from virtually unlimited fuel sources [1], [2]. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, dubbed ITER, is under construction in France in the framework of international collaboration among major countries and organizations over the world [3]. The initial operation for plasma production in ITER is scheduled in 2025.…”

First operation in SPIDER and the path to complete MITICA

“…This way the NBTF will provide several years of experience with the source and the whole injector before the start of ITER NBI and will accompany the ITER NBI operation so as to solve possible injector issues 2 . So the NBTF schedule is tightly linked with the overall ITER staged approach 8 , which assumes both ITER NBIs to be installed by September 2031. To fulfil such a plan, SPIDER is required to provide most of the relevant information when MITICA will start beam operation (spring 2023), whereas the experience gained with SPIDER and MITICA will have to confirm the design of the beam source of ITER NBIs, whose construction is planned to start by mid-2027.…”