This entailed separating the electrons from the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms.
Dubbed Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), the reactor in Greifswald, Germany is hoped to continuously contain super-hot plasma for more than 30 minutes at a time. "This will then enable Wendelstein 7-X to generate plasma pulses lasting up to 30 minutes," Bosch said.In the high-performance experiments planned, the new water-cooled divertor plates, which replace the previous uncooled ones, are designed to withstand a load of up to 10 megawatts per square metre. Without water cooling, the heat-resistant divertor tiles (made of carbon-fibre-reinforced carbon) would not be able to withstand this load for the intended 30-minute plasma pulses. The Wendelstein 7-X will not be used to produce energy but should demonstrate whether stellarators are suitable as a power plant. The highest temperature plasmas were produced by four-megawatt microwave heater pulses lasting one second; plasma electron temperatures reached 100 MK, while ion temperatures reached 10 MK. Registered in England and Wales, number 01215741 It is planned to begin with low water cooling, low heating power and short plasma pulses in order to allow testing of all installations in operation after the long break in experiments.
During the course of the step-by-step upgrading of Wendelstein 7-X, the plasma vessel was fitted with inner cladding beginning in September of last year.
90% of German funding comes from the federal government and 10% from the state government of
"These facilities will enable us to attain higher heating powers, higher temperatures, and longer discharges lasting up to 10 seconds," explained Thomas Klinger, head of the project.
It is the task of the so-called divertor - a system of specially equipped baffle plates to which the particles from the edge of the plasma are magnetically directed - to regulate the interaction between plasma and wall. More than 2,000 pulses were conducted before shutdown.Such tests were planned to continue for about a month, followed by a scheduled shut-down to open the vacuum vessel and line it with protective carbon tiles and install a "divertor" for removing impurities and heat from the plasma. is a service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.German-American joint project/Funding by Helmholtz AssociationFusion systems of the stellarator type promise high-performance plasmas in continuous operation.
A 2MWt pulse of microwave heating transformed a tiny quantity of hydrogen gas into an extremely hot low-density hydrogen plasma. In 10 double strips on the inner wall of the plasma vessel, the divertor tiles follow the curved contour of the plasma edge. With full cooling, longer pulses with plasma energies of up to one gigajoule should be possible - a target that will be slowly approached.
July 02, 2020.
Read breaking stories and opinion articles on wendelstein-7-x-stellarator at Firstpost Researched and written by World Nuclear News "A statement from the IPP said the current initial experimentation phase will last until mid-March, after which the plasma vessel will be opened in order to install carbon tiles to protect the vessel walls and a so-called "divertor" for removing impurities. In contrast, tokomaks can only operate in pulses without auxiliary equipment. Its purpose is to advance stellarator technology, though this experimental reactor will not produce electricity, it is used to evaluate the main components of a future fusion power plant; it was developed based on the predecessor Wendelstein 7-AS experimental reactor. This gets round the problems tokamaks face when magnetic coils confining the plasma are necessarily less dense on the outside of the toroidal ring.The Wendelstein 7-X will not be used to produce energy but should demonstrate whether stellarators are suitable as a power plant.
IPP expects that plasma equilibrium and confinement will be of a quality comparable to that of a …