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UKAEA-STEP-PR(26)122025
The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) is the UK’s flagship program to design a prototype fusion power plant capable of delivering net electricity to the grid. Due to geometric constraints in spherical tokamaks, STEP is being developed for fully non-inductive operation, relying primarily on microwav…
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UKAEA-STEP-PR(26)052024
STEP is a spherical tokamak prototype power plant that is being designed to demonstrate net electric power. The design phase involves the exploitation of plasma models to optimise fusion performance subject to satisfying various physics and engineering constraints. A modelling workflow, including integrated core plasma modelling, MHD stability a…
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UKAEA-STEP-PR(24)202024
Success of UKs STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) programme [1] [2] [3] [4] requires a robust plasma control system. This system has to guide the plasma from initiation to the burning phase, maintain it there, producing the desired fusion power for the desired duration and then terminate the plasma safely. This has to be done in a ch…
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UKAEA-STEP-PR(24)182024
This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the preliminary divertor design and plasma exhaust scenario for the reactor-class Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) project. Due to the smaller size of the machine, with a major radius less than half that of most DEMO concepts, the current design features a double-null divertor geometr…
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UKAEA-STEP-CP(24)042023
In 2019 the UK launched the STEP programme to design and build a prototype electricity producing nuclear fusion power plant, aiming to start operation around 2040. The plant should lay the foundation for the development of commercial nuclear fusion power plants. The design is based on the spherical tokamak principle, which opens a route to high pre…
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UKAEA-CCFE-PR(23)112023
A prototype infrared video bolometer (IRVB) was succesfully deployed in MAST-U, the first deployment of such a diagnostic in spherical tokamaks. The IRVB was designed to study the radiation around the x-point and has the potential to return emissivity profiles of unprecedented spatial resolution. The system was fully characterised prior installatio…
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UKAEA-CCFE-CP(23)472022
A comprehensive L-H power threshold study of MAST data is presented, with a detailed categorisation of transition and intermediate behaviour and a comparison of the results to scaling laws. Preliminary studies into the ion and electron heat flux for transitions at different densities are introduced. The first results of an L-H transition study o…
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UKAEA-STEP-CP(23)072022
With steady progress on ITER project and the design of DEMO, the international community is now entering an era in which fusion power on the grid could become a reality within the next 20 – 30 years. In this environment the UK has started the ambitious Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme, aiming to develop a compact protot…
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UKAEA-STEP-PR(23)052022
In this paper we present optimized actuator trajectories, evolving in time and space, of non-inductive ramp-up scenarios for the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP). These trajectories are computed by solving a non-linear, multi-objective, constrained, finite-time optimal control problem. A method unique to STEP ramp-up studies that prov…
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UKAEA-CCFE-PR(22)852022
Spherical tokamaks are known to differ from conventional tokamaks in a number of physics areas, but our understanding is limited by a comparative lack of experimental data. A comprehensive study of the density dependence of the H-mode power threshold PLH on the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) is presented, mapping out the low-density a…
Showing 1 - 10 of 31 UKAEA Paper Results