The US will contribute 100% towards the disruption mitigation system (up to a capped value).
The system has two functions: 1) limiting the impacts of plasma current disruptions to the tokamak vacuum vessel, first wall blankets and other in-vessel components, and 2) suppressing the formation and deleterious effects of high energy runaway electrons. The mitigation and suppression are expected to be accomplished by rapid shattered pellet injection (SPI).For more information, contact:
For more information, contact David Rasmussen, US ITER Project Office Disruption Mitigation Team Leader, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, rasmussnda@ornl.gov | 865-574-1158
US ITER researchers based at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are leading the development of a disruption mitigation system to reduce the effects of plasma disruptions.
ITER, the international fusion research facility now under construction in St. Paul-lez-Durance, France, has been called a puzzle of a million pieces. US ITER staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using an affordable tool—desktop three-dimensional printing, also known as additive printing—to help them design and configure components more efficiently and affordably.
Plasma disruptions that can occur in a tokamak when the plasma becomes unstable can potentially damage plasma-facing surfaces of the machine. To lessen the impact of high energy plasma disruptions, US ITER is engaged in a global research effort to develop disruption mitigation strategies.
US ITER researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing advanced processes to assess ITER’s unique tokamak components and materials in the presence of the tremendous amount of neutron flux and energy released by fusion reactions. The process, called neutronics analysis, involves a palette of complex computational codes and libraries for predicting neutron impacts.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Fusion Pellet Fueling Lab has been at the center of design and testing of plasma fueling systems for tokamak research applications for decades. Since the mid-1970s, lab researchers have been designing, testing, and contributing hardware for fusion magnetic confinement experiments here in the United States and around the world. As the US ITER project moves from design and testing of components to manufacturing, the lab is making prototypes for the ITER tokamak.
