JET to validate a key computing system for ITER

Team working (photo by iter.org)

A key computing system for the ITER international fusion device has been installed in the JET tokamak and is now being validated on an operational fusion experiment ahead of ITER’s start-up in 2025.

This computing system is the ITER synchronous databus network and it is a core part of the plasma control system. It consists of “a high performance software/hardware stack for interconnecting diagnostic and control systems on a tokamak”, Adam Stephen, CODAS project manager at Culham, explains.

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First results of NSTX-U

The new NSTX-U center stack (photo by Elle Starkman/PPPL).

Researchers from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratories (PPPL) presented first results from the research on the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the 26th International Atomic Energy Agency Conference (IAEA) in Kyoto, Japan.

The upgrade finished in May 2016 made the NSTX-U the most powerful fusion facility of its kind, since it doubled the magnetic field strength, plasma current and heating power capability of the predecessor facility. To achieve this the central stack (solenoid) was widened.

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