S. Herschmann F. Milella M. Torrance S. Wainwright O Crofts
Remote handling of breeding blankets poses an unprecedented challenge in future tokamaks like EU-DEMO, where individual blanket segments can weigh upwards of 80 tonnes and extend beyond 10 meters in length. The unparalleled scale of these components, coupled with extremely tight positional tolerances, demands careful consideration of structural …
PreprintJacob B.J. Chapman Mark. R. Gilbert Duc Nguyen-Manh
Materials within a viable D-T fusion power-plant will be subject to hydrogen isotope permeation through implantation, adsorption and transmutation. Hydrogen is known to have low solubility in iron but irradiation-induced defects such as vacancies can strongly trap multiple hydrogen atoms. Tritium breeding blankets will be required to compensate for…
PreprintJie Hou Duc Nguyen-Manh Jun Song
We present a computational study employing Object Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the behavior of D in self-irradiated Mo samples. Our simulations reveal that vacancy clusters contributing significantly to D diffusion, trapping, and desorption behavior. It is found that vacancy clusters play an important role in slowing the diffusion…
PreprintA. Boboc J. Macdonald R. Felton Mark J Brown W Studholme S Cramp the JET Operators
Originally designed for five years of plasma operations, the JET Far Infrared (FIR) interferometer/polarimeter diagnostic system is still operating at its full capabilities nearly forty years later and in ITER relevant conditions, albeit with significantly lower neutron fluences and for several D-T campaigns. The original design changed substantial…
PreprintO. Myatra B. Lipschultz D. Moulton K. Verhaegh B. Dudson S. Orchard A. Fil C. Cowley
Control of the detachment front between the target and the X-point is necessary for minimizing the effect of detachment on the core plasma (core radiation and loss of confinement) and maximizing the divertor functions (reduction of target heat load and sputtering, He pumping). However, such control has been difficult in experiments. The SOLPS-ITER …
PreprintE. Nasr S. Wimbush P Noonan P. Harris R. Gowland & A. Petrov
Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) requires high-field magnet designs and has therefore adopted REBCO-based high temperature superconductor (HTS). HTS enables the Toroidal Field (TF) coils to be re-mountable, which unlocks STEP’s vertical maintenance approach, however, re-mountable joints, approximately 18 GJ of stored energy, and lim…
PreprintD. Kennedy M. Giacomin B. Patel C. M. Roach D. Dickinson
The importance of parallel magnetic field perturbations in gyrokinetic simulations of electromagnetic instabilities and turbulence at mid-radius in the burning plasma phase of the conceptual high-β, reactor-scale, tight-aspect-ratio tokamak STEP is discussed. Previous studies have revealed the presence of unstable hybrid kinetic ballooning modes (…
PreprintA. Fil L. Henden S. Newton T. Hender M. Hoppe
Generation of Runaway Electrons during plasma disruptions, and their potential impact on the plasma facing components, is of great concern for ITER and future reactors based on the tokamak concept. The STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) programme aims at producing net energy from a prototype fusion energy plant. At its current design po…
PreprintJonathan Keep Chris Harrington Steven Killingbeck Stuart Muldrew Chris Waldon
The STEP design space is an intimidating and hostile arena to operate with extensive uncertainties in the pathway heightened by many moving parts, causality breakdown, and multiple significant decisions to be made. Many strongly interacting elements (tensions) of the requirements/constraints and the design within the physics, technology and enginee…
PreprintJ. R. Harrison C. Bowman J. G. Clark A. Kirk B. S. Patel P. Ryan R. Scannell A. J. Thornton K. Verhaegh
The integration of good core and edge/pedestal confinement with strong dissipation of heat and particles in the divertors is a significant challenge for the development of fusion energy. Alternative divertor configurations offer potential advantages by broadening the operational space where a device can operate with detached divertors and acce…
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