News – Page 37 – Fusion Group

ICREA and ERC contribute to top research in Catalonia

November 30, 2016November 30, 2016

Nature published last Thursday an article on how Catalonia has succeed keeping a high research level getting over budget cuts of 39%. The article, titled “Staying a steady course through the storm“, explains the keys for this success.

Arcadi Navarro, Secretary for Universities and Research, describes the secret for this success: “The crucial thing that guaranteed resilience was to focus policies on people, not on projects.”. Catalonia focused on attracting top researchers with European competitive salaries through an institution devoted to this goal: ICREA. The institute contracts top researcher making them professors for life with internationally competitive salaries.

Shutdown time for JET, lots of work for the fusion community!

November 23, 2016November 24, 2016

cp13j-033-005-720x260 — An internal view of JET reactor (courtesy of EUROfusion).

The Joint European Torus (JET) is going to take a well-earned shutdown after the 2015-16 experimental campaign which is believed to be one of the most successful campaigns of JET history.

According to the Head of the JET Exploitation Unit, Lorne Horton, “the campaign had three highlights: rehearsal of the procedures for future tritium-tritium and deuterium-tritium experiments, the hydrogen campaign during which physicists learned about the dependence of plasma parameters on the mass of the hydrogen fuel used, and the high-power deuterium campaign. And all these experiments achieved expected results.”

Join us! We are looking for a student for internship in fusion modelling

November 11, 2016November 14, 2016

Our fusion group has recently expanded its research activities to the simulation of fusion reactor materials, in particular investigating the formation and evolution of radiation generated defects in metal alloys.

Due to the complex character of these alloys, an accurate treatment is often only posible up to some hundred atoms. The BigDFT code, co-developed by BSC, has potential to go beyond this limitation and treat systems which have not been accessible so far.

First results of NSTX-U

November 8, 2016November 8, 2016

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.

New flexible neutral particle beam system for improved control of fusion energy

October 25, 2016October 25, 2016

Researchers working at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics (GA), in collaboration with scientists from University of California-Irvine and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, have created an important new tool for controlling energy-producing plasma in fusion devices. This work will be published in the January 2017 edition of Nuclear Fusion.

BSC Fusion Group at the IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in Kyoto, Japan

October 22, 2016October 22, 2016

This week, 17-22 October 2016, our Fusion Group member Shimpei Futatani has attended the 26^th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in Kyoto, which is one of the important international conferences in the field of fusion energy research. It provides a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a source of energy.