EUROPEAN FUSION DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT

MELTING TUNGSTEN ONBEHALF OF ITERJET EXPERIMENTS HELP ITER MAKE SUBSTANTIALCOST SAVINGS

GETTING THE ROADMAP ROLLING

SOLID TUNGSTEN FOR ASDEX UPGRADE

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTER FOR FUSION GOES OFFLINE

3 | 2013

FUSIONN E W S & V I E W S O N T H E P R O G R E S S O F F U S I O N R E S E A R C H

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FUSION IN EUROPE№ 3 | 2013

ContentsMoving Forward

EFDA3 Year-End message from the EFDA Leader 4 Getting the roadmap rolling6 High performance computer for fusion goes

offline

Associates8 Solid tungsten for ASDEX Upgrade

10 Atomic scale effects inside reactor walls12 A unique combination of research for fusion

materials and Plasma-Wall Interactions14 A new antenna for ASDEX Upgrade

JETInsight16 Melting tungsten on behalf of ITER18 JET Guestbook

Fuel for Thought19 Fusion in Europe invites: Robert-Jan Smits

CommunityPeople

20 Before the science comes the construction22 Young faces of fusion: Andrew Thornton23 Fighting over the Moon’s Helium-3 to fuel fusion

power plants

In dialogue24 Why are you doing a PhD in fusion science?26 A summer of fusion28 A new PhD programme puts students first

Miscellaneous18 EFDA online29 Newsflash

Title pictures: EFDA; IPP (Anja Richter-Ullman); IPP (Beate Kemnitz)

FUSION IN EUROPE | Contents |

ImprintFUSION IN EUROPE

ISSN 1818-5355

For more information see the website:

www.efda.org

EFDA Close Support Unit – Garching

Boltzmannstr. 2

85748 Garching / Munich

Germany

phone: +49-89-3299-4263

fax: +49-89-3299-4197

e-mail: christine.rueth@efda.org

editors: Petra Nieckchen, Christine Rüth

Subscribe at newsletter@efda.org

© Francesco Romanelli (EFDA Leader) 2013.This newsletter or parts of it may not be reproducedwithout permission. Text, pictures and layout, ex-cept where noted, courtesy of the EFDA Parties.The EFDA Parties are the European Commissionand the Associates of the European Fusion Pro -gramme which is co-ordinated and managed bythe Commission. Neither the Commission, theAssociates nor anyone acting on their behalf is re-sponsible for any damage resulting from the useof information contained in this publication.

(Picture: private)

( Picture: IPP AS CR)

23Fighting over the Moon’s Helium-3 to fuel fusion powerplants

26A summer of fusion

(Picture: H. Reimer, FZJ)

12A unique combination of research for fusion materialsand Plasma-Wall Interactions

12A unique combination of research for fusion materialsand Plasma-Wall Interactions

23Fighting over the Moon’s Helium-3 to fuel fusion powerplants

26A summer of fusion

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| Moving Forward | EFDA |

Dear reader,

A year ago I was proud to announce the completionof the Fusion Roadmap, an effort that has marked achange in the way our community commits itself todeliver fusion electricity. The year that is drawing to aclose has been devoted fully to preparing the imple-mentation of the Fusion Roadmap.

Within just a few months, a detailed Work Plan hasbeen defined. This is a significant step forward in theimplementation of fusion activities within a project-oriented structure. In addition, the activities regardingeducation, training and enabling research which com-plement and support the mission-oriented work, havebeen defined with the aim of pursuing excellence inour research field and training the “ITER generation”.

Project Leaders have been selected from amongst thebest scientists in fusion and appointed by the Heads ofResearch Units in October. I am convinced that wehave put together a very good team, ready to take onthe responsibility for the delivery of the Roadmap ob-jectives, and I am looking forward to working together.

F R A N C E S C O R O M A N E L L I

The EUROfusion Consortium governance is about tobe finalised. This has required considerable effort fromall the Institutions involved and I would like to takethe opportunity of this end of year message to thankeveryone involved for their support regarding the suc-cess of the task. Fusion activities are an example ofjoint programming and the new Consortium will rein-force this aspect. The approval of the EU fusion budgetin November has marked a crucial milestone and wecan now build our activities in Horizon 2020 on solidground.

The ITER-Like Wall exploitation on JET has deliveredits most significant result. The experimental JET findingsover the last two years – and the specific experiment inwhich operation has been successfully demonstratedafter producing a shallow layer of molten tungsten –have together paved the way towards achieving a pos-itive recommendation of the ITER STAC to begin witha full tungsten divertor in ITER. This decision was ap-proved by the ITER Council at the end of Novemberand it will allow an optimal preparation of early ITERoperations with a substantial reduction of the invest-ment costs.

The seventh EU Framework Programme is coming toan end. It has seen the commencement of ITER con-struction, the completion of the largest JET enhance-ment since the installation of the pumped divertor andthe formulation of the Fusion Roadmap. The eighthFramework Programme, Horizon 2020, will be startingin 2014 with a number of ambitious objectives to beachieved.

I wish you a successful 2014. �

YEAR-END MESSAGEFROM THE EFDA LEADER

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | EFDA |

GettING tHe ROAdMAPROllING

By forming the EUROfusion consortium,

Europe’s fusion research community

fills the Roadmap with life and streng-

thens its leading position in the field.

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“W e have come a very long way but we arenearly there now,” concluded EFDA LeaderDr. Francesco Romanelli at a meeting in

October this year. And indeed, the European fusioncommunity has come a long way. In 2012, the 30 EFDAAssociations analysed their programmes, identified themost efficient path to realise fusion electricity and brokethat down into necessary research missions. In early2013 this Roadmap to the Realisation of Fusion Energywas published. The EUROfusion consortium is nowbeing formed to implement the Roadmap into the fusionresearch activities under the Horizon 2020 FrameworkProgramme. The members of EUROfusion will be allcurrent EFDA Associates. Both EFDA and the bilateralagreements between the European Commission andthe national fusion laboratories – Contracts of Associ -ations, which used to provide annual baseline support– have come to an end. Activities within Horizon 2020will be implemented by the new Consortium in accor-dance with the Fusion Roadmap.

Pooling resources to make ITER a success.EUROfusion enables a strong, joint programme to-wards fusion electricity by effectively pooling nationalresources. This will allow the European fusion pro-gramme to take on increasingly complex and large scaleprojects, which are required to prepare for ITER andto design and construct DEMO. EUROfusion will, forinstance, not only define and implement the scientificprogramme of JET, but will also be allocated experi-mental time at other small- and mid-sized tokamaks.

Industrial involvement is another strategic pri-ority in the Roadmap, especially with respect to DEMOdesign and construction. Specific opportunities for part-nerships with industry have been defined in the five-year Work Plan for Power Plant Physics and Technol -ogy. During Horizon 2020, these partnerships betweenresearch laboratories and industries should be facili-tated by EUROfusion by means of provision of supportto joint programmes.

| Moving Forward | EFDA |

Education and training are called for in theRoadmap in order to create the next generation of fu-sion experts. During the 7th Framework Programme,the Fusion Education Network FuseNet has coordi-nated education activities at both Master and PhD-level. EFDA offers Post-Doctoral Fellowships and aGoal Oriented programme designed to train specificcompetences. For Horizon 2020, EUROfusion will ad-ditionally aim at supporting PhD and university studentprogrammes, building on the FuseNet experience.

The formation of EUROfusion is currently un-derway and will be completed in 2014. FrancescoRomanelli has been appointed as interim ProgrammeManager and IPP Garching as coordinator. The eightresearch missions identified in the Roadmap have beenbroken down into nearly 30 Work Packages outlinedin the Consortium Work Plan 2014 – 2018. Project lead-ers for these Work Packages have been appointed. Atan information meeting held in Garching in October,they presented their plans to the wider fusion commu-nity and proposed opportunities for collaboration. Workon these projects will start in January 2014. “The successof EUROfusion,” emphasised Francesco Romanelli atthe meeting, “will rely on the strong collaboration be-tween the EURO fusion Programme Unit, the ProjectLeaders and all Associated Laboratories”. �

More information: http://www.efda.org/efda/horizon2020/

Internal documentation on EUROfusion is continu-ously updated on the EFDA users’ website:

http://users.jet.efda.org/eurofusion-consortium/http://users.jet.efda.org/upcoming-events/

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | EFDA |

HIGH PERFORMANCECOMPUTER FOR FUSIONGOES OFFLINE

The HPC-FF platform and team – along

with the High Level Support Team – have been

invaluable to the European fusion theory

community. They have facilitated many

important scientific discoveries, includ-

ing an explanation of the observed re-

duction of ion profile stiffness at the

JET tokamak. This effect has striking

consequences, in particular, for

burning plasma experiments and

is likely to enhance ITER's predicted

fusion performance.

DR. FRANK JENKO, IPP

The microtearing instabilityshown in this image is one of the mostchallenging types of turbulence to simulate.(Image: H. Doerk, IPP)

“

”

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| Moving Forward | EFDA |

After having served European fusion research forfour years, the High Performance Computer forFusion (HPC-FF) completed operation in June

2013. HPC-FF provided scientists with a significant in-crease in computing power (100 teraFLOPS), allowingadvances in plasma and materials modelling and fusiontechnology simulations. The European Com mis sion(EURATOM) funded HPC-FF together with EFDAand the Forschungszentrum Jülich whose Super -computing Centre operated the facility. Now fusionmodelling work has moved to the significantly morepowerful Helios computer which has a peak perform-ance of around 1500 teraFLOPS. Helios is a Ja pan ese-European facility under the Broader Ap proach agree-ment and is located in Rokkasho, Japan.

Turbulence simulations: a key applicationAltogether, more than 200 projects were run on theHPC-FF. One of the major activities were simulationsof plasma turbulence for a range of fusion devices.Turbulence is the key process governing energy con-finement in tokamak plasmas. Simulating turbu-lence in fluids is already a demanding task, butsimulating in plasmas brings the additional com-plexity of charged particles in an electro-mag-netic field. The processes also take place on abroad range of time and length scales, and de-tailed simulations therefore require the use ofHigh Performance Computers. Another im-portant field of investigation, for which HPC-FF was used, was for studies of plasma insta-bilities. These phenomena can cause rapidenergy losses in the plasma, which in large

machines like ITER could result in damage to the reactorwall. A third focus of activity was the simulation of thebehaviour of potential reactor wall materials under high-energy neutron flux. These conditions are characteristicfor the deuterium-tritium plasmas that will be used inthe second phase of the ITER experiment and in futurefusion demonstration and power plants.

High Level Support Team continues toprovide assistanceHPC-FF is the first shared High Performance Computerfacility for the European fusion community. To ensuremaximum benefit from the facility, a High Level SupportTeam was put in place. Its role is to help scientists opti-mise their codes for the massively parallel computer ar-chitecture of HPC-FF. The team consists of a core groupbased at IPP Garching and other support staff providedby the Associates. All members are HPC experts with abackground in developing large scientific applications,including particular expertise in numerical algorithmsand in graphical support and visualisation. The HighLevel Support Team will continue to provide invaluableassistance to the European fusion scientists using theHelios system and thus ensure a smooth transition tothe new facility. �

Contact & Information: Dr. Tim Hender, CCFE, Chair HPC Board,Tim.Hender@ccfe.ac.ukDr. Darren McDonald, EFDA, High Level SupportTeam coordinator, Darren.McDonald@efda.orghttp://www.efda-hlst.eu/

The “Broader Approach” agreement for complementary research and development was signedin February 2007 between EURATOM and the Japanese government. It provides a frameworkenabling Japan to conduct research and development over a period of ten years to support ITER.www.tinyurl.com/broaderapproach

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | Associates |

The tungsten-coated tiles of

the ASDEX Upgrade outer

divertor have been repla-

ced with tiles made of solid tungs-

ten. This change brings various

benefits including the possibility

of new types of material studies

with regard to ITER. Operation will

start in January 2014.

SOLID TUNGSTEN FORASdeX UPGRAde

Tungsten is the material intended for the firstreactor wall in ITER. With the exception ofJET, which features an ITER-Like Wall madefrom tungsten and beryllium, ASDEX Upgradeis currently the only other divertor machine inEurope which is equipped with tiles of solidtungsten. And will remain so until the FrenchWEST experiment starts operation in 2016.Besides investigating the behaviour of solidtungsten when compared to tungsten-coatedtiles, the change opens up options for long-termstudies. Material erodes under heat and particlefluxes from the plasma. This effect is at its worstat the divertor, where the plasma touches thevessel wall. The ten micrometre tungsten-coat-ing of the previously used graphite tiles wouldvanish in part after a longer period of opera-tion, so tiles needed to be reworked regularly.The 15 millimetre thick tungsten tiles, on theother hand, may be exposed to the plasma overlonger operational periods. During plasmapulses in ASDEX Upgrade, which may last upto ten seconds long , the tiles will experience atemperature excursion from room temperatureup to melting temperature (around 3400 °C).This simulates the conditions during ITERover loads which will occur, for instance, duringplasma edge instabilities which thrust very high

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| Moving Forward | Associates |

The bottom ASDEX Upgrade divertor during installation. The straight tiles to the right are made ofsolid tungsten – one of them is equipped with Langmuir probes. (Picture: Volker Rohde, IPP, Nov 2013)

heat and particle loads at the vessel wall. Aftersome time of operation, the surface of the tiles willshow signs of erosion and cracks. ASDEX Up -grade will help us to gain experience about oper-ation with tiles degraded in this way.

Engineering challengesIn 2007, ASDEX Upgrade was the first tokamakto have an inner vessel wall coated with tungsten.Now it takes a big step and implements solidtungsten on a large scale. The tungsten tiles are alot heavier than the previous tungsten-coatedgraphite tiles. And, for this reason, the divertorand the cooling system had to be reconstructed.Manufacturing the tungsten tiles is also not astandard industrial process, so IPP used its teststand GLADIS to first test the prototype tiles andthen test the samples from the serial productionunder conditions which simulate two to threeyears of ASDEX Upgrade operation.

Changing tiles betweenexperimental daysWithin these reconstructions, a divertor manipu-lator was designed and installed, which allowsthe replacement of two tiles without breaking thevacuum. This enables dedicated experiments withspecial targets. While many material and divertorconcept tests can be conducted in test standssuch as GLADIS or in linear plasma machines,some conditions can only be realised in tokamaks.These include, for instance, special magnetic fieldconfigurations, grazing plasma incidence, or theeffect that gyrating ions have on the tiles. Thenew divertor manipulator has a water inlet andthus also enables the testing of actively cooledtargets, as planned for ITER. The IPP task forcefor plasma edge processes is currently discussingwith ITER what possibilities ASDEX Upgradeoffers to address specific ITER questions, for ex-ample, testing of various tile geometries or tessel-lations. �

Contact & informationDr. Albrecht Herrmann, IPP:albrecht.herrmann@ipp.mpg.deASDEX Upgrade: http://tinyurl.com/ASDEXUpgradeGLADIS test stand: http://tinyurl.com/Gladis-test-stand

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | Associates |

ATOMIC SCALE EFFECTSINSIDE REACTOR WALLSA new laboratory at CCFE investigates how high-speed neutronsaffect material structures

How can tiny specks of metal, a fraction of thewidth of a human hair, help designers of futurenuclear power stations? The answer lies in

these images, which may look cavernous but in fact areonly about 3/100th of a millimetre across. They havebeen generated in CCFE’s new materials laboratory,which allows scientists to look at processes which, alt-hough they take place at a microscopic level, could ne-vertheless damage the structure of large reactorsweighing thousands of tonnes. The subject of investi-gation are fast-moving neutrons unleashed during bothfusion and fission energy processes. Their effect on thestructures of the reactors is of particular concern for to-kamaks – in which neutrons hit surfaces at around50,000 km per second – but is also a problem in fissiondevices, despite the slower speeds involved. CCFE’smaterials laboratory, which opened in summer, is the-refore available for use both in fusion and fission. It ispart of the first phase of the UK’s National NuclearUser Facility (NNUF), a £15 million government-fun-ded partnership designed to improve Britain’s experi-mental equipment for nuclear research.

Produced by the University of Oxford’s Mike Gorley on CCFE’s Scanning Electron Microscope,this image shows fracture damage in a piece of steel supplied by KIT.

Realistic conditionsThe materials that future reactors are to be made fromwill come under intense and sustained bombardmentfrom these sub-atomic bullets. Neutrons dislodge atomswithin the metal and create new, unwanted elements,such as helium. The overall effect makes reactor com-ponents weaker and more brittle. But problems willnot initially be obvious in the form of large cracks; theycan only be spotted at the boundaries between tinygrains of the material and can only be seen using pow-erful microscopes. The lab at CCFE cuts samples into small, but easy tohandle, millimetre-sized shapes before examining themon a micron scale with a Scanning Electron Microscopethat is capable of zooming in to view what is happeningat the grain boundaries within the metal. In addition, aFocused Ion Beam cuts out miniscule fragments foreven closer inspection, and a ‘nanoindenter’ pressesdown on them to test their hardness and elasticity.Researchers can use this information to benchmarksimulation models and predict how materials will per-

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| Moving Forward | Associates |

form inside full-scale re-actors, thus aiding thedevelopment of more ro-bust alloys for powerplant designs. CCFE’sChris Hardie explained:“It is not the cutting-edgeequipment, which is nowfound in several materi-als research laboratories,

that provides value here at CCFE; it is the ability tolook at real materials, subject to real reactor environ-ments, which is difficult or impossible to investigateelsewhere, due to restrictions in working with radioac-tive samples.”

Solving engineering issuesAnd the new facilities have already been employed tosolve a materials problem for CCFE’s project to upgradethe MAST tokamak. Attempts to braze stainless steeland copper chromium zirconium for a joint on MAST’snew centre column were proving unsuccessful. Usingthe Scan ning Electron Micro scope’s high magnification,the joint’s chem ical composition was revealed, showinghigher concentrations of zirconium than expected. Thisexplained why the braze was not as effective as pre-dicted and has helped the CCFE engineers to find asolution. Chris Hardie added: “These results show how the fa-cilities can be used independently to investigate realengineering problems faced at Culham – a really goodearly demonstration of its huge potential.” The project’smain phase will start when CCFE moves the lab to aspecially-constructed facility at the Culham site in 2015.

This building will have space for a greater range ofequipment, with separate areas for examining fissionand fusion materials, and hot cells for the processingand analysis of small amounts of neutron-irradiatedmaterial. It will cater for users from both academia andindustry, forming a key element of the improved suiteof UK nuclear research facilities being established bythe NNUF partnership.

Investigating JET wall materialsEFDA’s materials programme is able to benefit fromthis facility which will complement those in otherEuropean fusion laboratories. More specifically, thenew building at CCFE may well directly assist JET. Inthe run-up to ITER’s commissioning, scientists intendto carry out a ‘dress rehearsal’ on JET using the deu-terium and tritium fuel mix required for full fusionpower performance. Having a materials laboratory on-site will enable the quick inspection of components re-moved from the JET vessel. The lab’s Thermal De -sorption Spectroscopy equipment will be used to detecthow much fuel from the fusion plasma has been ab-sorbed by tiles in the beryllium and tungsten ITER-Like Wall of the machine during these tests, and thusanswer important materials questions for ITER. �

Nick Holloway, CCFE

The CCFE materials laboratory is ‘open for business’and requests for access can be sent to info@mrl.ccfe.ac.uk.More Information: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/mrl.aspx.

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | Associates |

A UNIqUE COMBINATION OFReSeARcH FOR FUSION MAteRIAlS

Christian Linsmeier and Ulrich Samm in the PSI-2 laboratory.(Picture: H. Reimer, Forschungszentrum Jülich)

With the TEXTOR tokamak being shut

down at the end of 2013, the plasma

physics division at Forschungs zen -

trum Jülich enhances its research on Plasma-Wall

Interactions with materials science. A dedicated

linear plas ma device, JULE-PSI, is under con -

struction and will start operation in 2015.

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| Moving Forward | Associates |

ANDPl ASMA-WAll INteR Ac tIONS

“We are currently the only group in Europe – if not inthe world – that combines expertise in linear facilitiesfor Plasma-Wall Interaction studies and materials re-search,“ says material scientist Prof. Christian Linsmeier.In March 2013, Linsmeier was appointed director ofthe plasma physics division of FZ Jülich’s Institute forEnergy and Climate research (IEK). He leads it in con-junction with director Prof. Ulrich Samm. Before that,Linsmeier headed the research group for plasma-facingmaterials and components at IPP Garching. He seesnew opportunities for fusion material science at FZJülich, pointing out synergies with the IEK’s divisionsfor Microstructure and Properties of Materials and forMaterials Synthesis and Processing.As the global fusion community begins conceptual workon demonstration power plants, it has become impor-tant, not only to investigate the physical processes thattake place between the hot plasma and the reactor wall,but also to develop new materials capable of withstand-ing the conditions in those plants. FZ Jülich’s new linearplasma device JULE-PSI is designed to deliver plasmaconditions which are relevant for future fusion powerstations (see Fusion Europe 1/2011). It will be locatedinside a hot cell, allowing investigations to be carriedout with neutron activated materials or materials con-taining beryllium. Construction of the hot cell will com-mence in 2014.

Three main conceptsFusion materials research at FZ Jülich addresses threemain concepts. Firsty, tungsten composites which mighthelp solve the problem that tungsten, the preferred wallmaterial for fusion reactors walls, turns brittle under theanticipated operational conditions. The development ofthese materials started at IPP Garching and will be con-tinued in collaboration. Secondly, self-passivating alloyswhich is an additional project that will be conducted inconjunction with IPP. These alloys provide an additionallevel of safety. For instance, if the cooling system fails, aself-heating alloy would develop a protecting oxide layerand thus prevent radioactive isotopes from escapingfrom the hot wall. Thirdly, barrier layers for tritium whichprevent the element from diffusing through the first wallinto the structural steels. The fusion fuel tritium is elab-orately produced in the reactor wall and any loss has tobe prevented. Moreover, tritium would activate the wallstructure and possibly contaminate the cooling fluid.

A unique centre of competenceJULE-PSI is one of four linear devices for Plasma-WallInteraction studies in Europe. VISION I at SCKCEN,Belgium, operates with tritium plasmas at moderatepower. MAGNUM PSI at DIFFER in The Netherlands,features high enough particle and heat fluxes and densitiesto study divertor materials under realistic conditions.JULE-PSI is able to investigate hazardous or activatedmaterials in a high-power tritium plasma. Finally, PSI2 –a similar experiment to JULE-PSI, but outside the hotcell – is already operational at FZ Jülich. Together theseinstitutes form the Trilateral Euregio Cluster (TEC), aunique centre of competence for Plasma-Wall Interactionstudies addressing the needs of the fusion device afterITER. �

Contact & information: Institute for Energy and Climate Research –Plasma Physics (IEK-4)http://www.fz-juelich.de/iek/iek-4Prof. Dr. Ulrich Samm, u.samm@fz-juelich.deProf. Dr. Christian Linsmeier, ch.linsmeier@fz-juelich.de

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Yuntao Song und Jean-Marie Noterdaeme with the drawing of the new ICRH antenna forASDEX Upgrade.

The all-tungsten wall of ASDEX Upgrade hasraised the need for a differently designed antennafor its ICRF heating system. The current antenna

design generates unwanted electric fields that sputtertungsten atoms from the wall. These impurities increasethe radiation from the plasma and thus harm theplasma’s performance.

New antennas were designed to minimise these unwantedelectrical fields. The first of two antennas, built by theChinese partner, arrived this summer. “I am extremelyhappy with the way the antenna behaved in the test stand,”says Prof. Jean-Marie Noterdaeme of IPP. The Chineseteam is lead by Dr. Song Yuntao of ASIPP and eventhough his team was able to draw on their experiencefrom building the ICRF antennas for the institute’s toka-mak EAST, the project is still quite challenging, he says.“The design and the manufacturing processes are verycomplex. We had to use special welding procedures, forinstance, to meet the extreme precision requirements.”

Both project leaders agree that the collaboration wentreally well. “We had to work out the procedures first,”recalls Noterdaeme, “It was not sufficient to just ex-change drawings, forinstance. There are dif-ferent standards inboth countries andtechnical terms some-times have differentdefinitions”. “The goodthing,” explains Song,was that “we all knewwhat we were talkingabout because bothgroups had built thistype of antenna before”.His institute hopes to see further collaborations afterthis successful project, he adds. The collaboration agree-ment also envisages that ASIPP scientists will participatein the experiments on ASDEX Upgrade with the newantennas.

The second antenna will arrive in Garching in early2014. Both antennas will be installed into ASDEXUpgrade during the next shutdown in 2014. ENEA willsupply additional components like the Faraday shield,

A NeW ANteNNA FORA S d e X U P G R A d e

cooling structures and a microwave reflectometry diag-nostic, which is a powerful system for measuring theplasma density at several locations in front of the an-tenna. The Portuguese Association IST will contributethe electronics for this system.

“Even though the antenna has been optimised for lowimpurity levels, it has some flexibility to operate around

this optimum and thus could thusallow a solid confirmation of the op-timisation procedure,” explainsNoterdaeme. IPP is also building atest stand, IShTAR, which will com-plement the experiments on AS-DEX Upgrade and allow dedicatedexperiments designed to provide uswith a deeper understanding of thephysical mechanisms. Jean-MarieNoter daeme is looking forward tosee the two antennas in action: “Ifwe can prove our hypothesis that

the antenna design solves the impurity problem, thenwe will have made a big step forwards,” he says. �

Contact & information: Prof. Dr. Jean-Marie Noterdaeme, IPP:noterdaeme@ipp.mpg.deDr. Song Yuntao, Assistant Director of ASIPP andhead of Tokamak Design Division: songyt@ipp.ac.cnASIPP: http://english.ipp.ac.cn/ASDEX Upgrade: http://tinyurl.com/ASDEXUpgrade

Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) heating injects

radio frequency waves into the plasma. The frequency

matches the frequency at which ions gyrate around the

magnetic field lines, thus causing resonance. The two

new ICRF antennas for ASDEX Upgrade are produced in

cooperation between IPP Garching, the Institute for

Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

(ASIPP) and ENEA, Frascati. Jean-Marie Noterdaeme

heads IPP’s Department for ICRF, where the engineer

Helmut Fünfgelder coordinates the antenna project.

FUSION IN EUROPE | Moving Forward | Associates |

EFDA provides the work platform to exploit JET in

an efficient and focused way. More than 40 Euro -

pean fusion laboratories collectively contribute to

the JET scientific programme and develop the

hardware of the machine further. The tokamak is

located at the Culham Science Centre near Oxford

in the UK. It is funded by EURATOM, by the Euro -

pean Associates, and by UK’s fusion Associate, the

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) as host.

CCFE operates the JET facilities including carrying

out the maintenance and refurbishment work re-

quired to realise the given scientific goals.

THE JOINT EUROPEAN TORUS, JET

The JET vessel in May 2011, featuring the complete ITER-Like Wall. (Picture: EFDA)

EUROPE’S LARGEST FUSION DEVICE – FUNDED AND USED IN PARTNERSHIP

| JETInsight |

16

T here were a few frayed nerves in

the JET control room in August, as

experi ments to deliberately melt

tungsten tiles in the divertor got underway.

These apparent acts of scientific vandalism

were actually courageous experi ments

which have helped ITER make a decision

that substantially reduces investment costs.

MELTING TUNGSTENON beHAlF OF IteR

An account of JET’s experiments, which helped ITER makea design decision that offers substantial cost savings.

Some tungsten tiles of JET's inner wall have been deliberately misaligned to test their melting behaviour.(Picture: EFDA)

FUSION IN EUROPE | JETInsight |

17

The tests were requested by ITER to sup-port its assessment of what materialshould be used for its plasma-facing wall.Although tungsten is a front-runner, thereis a concern about the effect that the mel-ting of a tungsten tile might have on theplasma. Therefore, the original ITER de-sign plan foresaw a more forgiving carbonwall for the run-in phase of the machinewith a change to tung sten at a later stage.

“In earlier melt experiments in ASDEXUpgrade, molten metal was sprayedaround, and it became hard to operatebecause the plasma disrupted a lot,” saidGuy Matthews, who leads the JET ITER-Like Wall project. “But here nothing cat-astrophic happened, it’s quite well be-haved!” Gilles Arnoux, one of the sci -entific coordinators of the experimentagreed. “It was a smooth melt; the plasmadidn’t seem to notice. I was surprised athow little impact it had.”

Melting under ITER conditionsThe difference between these JET exper-iments and previous ones at ADEXUpgrade is that the melting was achievedby the transient bursts of turbulencerather than by bulk melting. Transientbursts are caused by certain plasma in-stabilities called Edge Localised Modesor ELMs. They raise the temperatureabove the melting point for millisecondsonly, and so the melting behaviour isharder to predict. JET is the only tokamakin the world which has enough energy inits plasma to melt tungsten with ELMs,thereby modelling conditions in ITER, inwhich ELMs could potentially carry afearsome amount of energy.

The tests at JET involved subjecting asmall area of a deliberately misalignedtungsten wall tile to regulated bursts ofturbulent events. The peak temperatureof the tile during the transient bursts wasslowly increased until it exceeded tung-sten’s melting point, 3422 degrees Celsius.The aim was to assess what effect moltentungsten might have on the operation ofthe plasma. In particular, it was feared

that a melt event might contaminate thehydrogen-based plasma with tungstenand lead to a disruption – an uncontrolledenergy dump from the plasma – whichcould cause further surface melting in afusion experiment as large as ITER. Instead, as shown in the picture, the moltentungsten moved smoothly to one end ofthe tile and formed a droplet that grew witheach additional plasma pulse. Curiously themolten metal did not run downwards – aresult of the magnetic forces inside thetokamak – and, to the scientists’ relief,moved away from the hottest part of theplasma rather than being swept back intothe exposed area. Subsequent experimentswere performed without any interruptionin the proceedings.

Joining the JET team in the control roomwas the leader of ITER’s Divertor andPlasma Wall Interactions section, DrRichard Pitts, who has been involvedthroughout the planning of the experi-ment. He said: “It has been a great suc-cess and has achieved what it set out todo: to demonstrate that repetitive, fasttransient heat pulses pushing tungstenover the melt threshold for just one ortwo milliseconds each time.” He contin-ued: “they do not drive melt splashingnor do they appear to have any observ-able effect on the core plasma. It seemsthat we can broadly understand what wehave seen on the basis of complex com-puter simulations describing the melt dy-namics and thus our confidence is in-creased in the extrapolations we makefor the behaviour to expect on ITER,which use the same computer codes.”

Two months after these first experimentson JET, the ITER Council Science andTechnology Advisory Committee pro-posed to the ITER Council, the highestcommittee in the ITER Organization, toequip the ITER divertor with tungstentargets from the very start of operations.In November, this proposal was approvedand the ITER Council decided to com-mence ITER operation a full tungsten di-vertor. � Phil Dooley, EFDA

Melting tungsten forms a droplet on a deliberatelymolten tile of JET’s tungsten divertor. (Picture: EFDA)

| JETInsight |

FUSION IN EUROPE | JETInsight |

JETGUESTbOOK

Some of the about 1700 visitors who came to Jetfrom July through November 2013:

� 518 school students, along with 61 teachers, learned aboutfusion and JET

� 256 university students attended tours and summer schools

� 260 professionals in science and industry came for workshops, tours and discussions

� Several journalists and film crews came to report about JET, MAST and fusion

Contact

EFDA JET Fusion Fusion Expo News Multimedia Collaborators

Careers Links FAQ’s Glossary User’s web page

www.efda.org

eFdA on twitterGet updates on European fusion research ontwitter @ fusionincloseup

european fusion research in Horizon 2020Stay tuned on our continuously updated website

learn more about fusion I:Check out EFDA’s updated glossary

learn more about eFdA and fusion II:Browse the Frequently Asked Questions

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19

Horizon 2020, our new framework programme,will provide unprecedented levels of support forEuropean research and innovation. It will do so

to achieve the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy forsmart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and to addresskey societal challenges such as combatting climatechange and securing the supply of energy. Fusion energyresearch is part of this endeavour. Its importance hasbeen underlined in the Strategic Energy Technology Planand the next seven-year EU budget foresees significantfunding for the completion of ITER and for the Euratompart of Horizon 2020. Fusion has enormous potential asan energy source for the future and the EU remains com-mitted to this vision.

Europe has always played a leading role in this field.JET and ITER are hosted on European soil. JET is cur-rently the world's largest, and arguably most successful,operating fusion device. ITER is the world’s biggest andmost ambitious energy research project, the success ofwhich is paramount if the potential of fusion energy isto be realised. In the past, EFDA and the Contracts ofAssociation have provided a solid basis in Europe forthe scientific developments in fusion. However, the waywe carry out research must now be reorganised and re-structured so that Europe can effectively contribute toand benefit from the success of ITER. The recentlyagreed EFDA roadmap shows the path that should nowbe followed and is a testament to the high level of coor-dination and unity in the fusion community.

After consulting all stakeholders, the EuropeanCommission believes that to reach the roadmap's ob-jectives this new structure must be based on joint pro-gramming between the key research actors. The joint

programme will bring together national and Europeanresources to focus on the research needs of ITER, onits eventual exploitation and the goal of achieving fusionelectricity within a reasonable timeframe. It will em-power national laboratories and Member States to ‘takeownership’ of the process, but will also place more re-sponsibility on them to redirect resources to the road -map goals.

The European Commission remains committed tothe fusion roadmap and to providing significant co-funding for the joint programme 2014-2018. TheCommission expects that all member laboratories ofEFDA will participate in the joint programme and thusbenefit from European support. This participation willallow them to further develop their competencies to befully aligned with the roadmap.

Fusion research is an excellent example of a collab-orative European effort that has been built up over manyyears as a result of successive Euratom programmes.The time has come to take the next step in line with thenew roadmap, exploiting results of basic research in ap-plied science and technology and increasingly involvingindustry. The new joint programme is the first crucialstage in this process. The Commission counts on thecontinued effective collaboration of all stakeholders inorder to ensure that the vision of commercial fusion en-ergy becomes reality. �

F U S I O N I N E U R O P E I N V I T E S :

RObeRt-JAN SMItSEU AT THE FOREFRONT OF FUSION RESEARCH

(Picture: European Commission)

RObERT-JAn SMITS is Director-Generalof DG Research and Innovation (RTD) at theEuropean Commission. His previous assign-ments were Deputy Director-General of DGJoint Research Centre and Director for theEuropean Research Area: Research Pro -grammes and Capacity at DG RTD. Mr. Smitschairs several high-level committees such asEuropean Research Area Committee (ERAC)and the Steering Committee of the EuropeanResearch Council (ERCEA). Robert-Jan Smits has degrees from UtrechtUniversity in The Netherlands, Institut de Uni-versitaire d’Hautes Études Internationales inSwitzerland and Fletcher School of Law &Diplomacy in the United States of America.

FUSION IN EUROPE | Community | People |

20

BEFORE THE SCIENCECOMES THE CONSTRUCTION

“To make big science, you have to build the device first,”says Dr Zenon Sulek from the Institute of NuclearPhysics PAN. The physicist knows what he is talkingabout. He spent nine years installing and assessing thequality of vital components at CERN and at Wendelstein7-X. Sulek could also say “to make any experimentalscience, you have to build it first,” because building hisown physics experiments has led him to acquire thespecial expertise that turned out to be so useful for bigscience experiments.

What do CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, Wendelstein 7-X and theX-ray laser XFEL have in common? They are big science projectsthat rely on a team of experts from the Scientific Infrastructure

Section at the Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN in Krakow, Poland.

Work on Wendelstein 7-X. (Picture IPP, Anja Ullmann)

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| Community | People |

Science and technology partnershipThe Institute of Nuclear Physics has a long history ofelementary and particle physics. Its scientists have beenworking at CERN from the experiment’s very beginningand in the 1990s the institute became an official CERNpartner. The involvement in the construction of experi-ments started when Zenon Sulek joined CERN’s LargeHadron Collider (LHC) project in 2003. The group heled was involved in the construction of the magnets’ in-terconnections – for vacuum, power supply or electricalsignals. Together with another Polish CERN scientist,Dr Blazej Skoczen, he set off formulating quality stan-dards for these connections.

Recognising the need for this kind of expertise, the in-stitute in Krakow formed two expert groups – theInterConnection Inspection Team headed by ZenonSulek, and the Electrical Quality Assurance team ledby his colleague Dr Andrzej Kotarba. They wrote in-spection procedures, outlined the technology neededfor the task and submitted a proposal to CERN. From2005 until 2008, their job was the quality assurance forthe interconnections which had been installed by a com-mercial partner. Each group comprised between six and15 people, depending on the project phase.

As they were starting to pack up in Geneva, anotherbig science project had heard of their expertise and of-fered up another really challenging task, that of con-necting the strangely shaped superconducting magneticcoils in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator. For the next sixyears, some 50 engineers, physicists and techniciansfrom Krakow were involved first in preparation andtraining and then in the assembly and first level qualityassurance of these superconducting connectors known

Zenon Sulek (right) and Andrzej Kotarba (second from right) and their teams in June 2005 in surface inspection hall of the LHC magnets at CERN. Zenon Sulek’ deputy, Leszek Hajduk, standson the left. (Picture: private)

as bus-bars. The effort amounted to more than 160 fulltime equivalent years. One year ago, the project wassuccessfully completed and – after having lived fouryears in Switzerland and five in Greifswald – ZenonSulek is now back in Krakow. “I am officially retired,”he says, “ but I still work in the institute”. His counter-part Andrzej Kotarba, is back in Germany again – as-sembling cryomodules and superconductors at theEuropean X-ray Laser XFEL. Construction is scheduledto finish in 2015. Some other colleagues are back atCERN, carrying out additional work at LHC during thecurrent shutdown.

The fun of making big science workAll in all, about 50 members of the institute’s expert groupsare working abroad, and a smaller number is active inKrakow. The Institute of Nuclear Physics has an interestin such collaborations as an ‘in-kind’ contribution to bigscience facilities, and so the base of technicians and theirexpertise have continuously grown. Even though workingabroad sometimes is hard, especially for young families,the groups are proud to be part of these big science projects.To ease the travelling, the institute has a rotating staff oftechnicians who are abroad for several months and thenwork at home for the same length of time. Management,however, needs to be on site most of the time, which is thereason why Zenon Sulek spent so many years living abroad– often taking his family with him. Does he miss travellingnow? Not really, he says.“ I am engaged in many interestingprojects, so I’m not getting bored”. And then there is FAIR– the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research –, which isunder construction in Darmstadt, Germany. Another bigscience project that Zenon Sulek and his colleagues fromKrakow are helping become reality. �

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YOUNG FACES OF FUSION –ANdReW tHORNtON

How did you come to fusion research?

I came to fusion because I enjoyed plasma physics. Ihappened to pick plasma sources as a project for mythird year at university in Manchester. It was great funand I did another one the following year. Eventually Iapproached my supervisor about a PhD. He said Ishould get involved in the UK fusion programme andsuggested I apply to the University of York to do a PhDat CCFE. So I joined the University of York and did myPhD, based at CCFE, on disruption mitigation. Had Istayed in Manchester, where I did my undergraduatestudies, I would have still done a PhD in plasmaphysics, but not in fusion.

What challenges do you think need to be solved forfusion to be a potential energy source?

Well, I think that in order to get there, you need to dealwith transient events such as the instabilities that I in-vestigate. If we can solve these, then we are on the wayto achieving power generation and energy from fusionfor mankind. I think it is just a matter of makingprogress along the road until we get there and that isexactly what my work is about.

Andrew Thornton is a staff scien-tist at CCFE. He works on MASTand studies the mitigation ofplasma edge instabilities (ELMs)by investigating how magneticperturbations affect the heat loadsand fluxes that these instabilitiesdeliver to the surfaces inside thetokamak.

(Picture: Jo Silva)

What are your next aims in your work?

Well, we are upgrading MAST at the moment, installinga new divertor we’ve made, the Super-X divertor. I amlooking forward to see what happens in a few yearstime and to see how that develops over the next tenyears.

Was does it mean for you to work in an internationalenvironment?

It makes CCFE an interesting place to work. We havea lot of people from abroad who come to MAST or toJET, which we collaborate with as well. It’s interestingto see how other people do their work. I think duringthe shutdown of MAST I will have more opportunityto look at other machines.

What do you like most about your job?

It’s always nice when you have a good day, when youwere expecting something or you wanted to try to findsomething in an experiment and you succeed. Or whenyou’ve worked for a long time for a piece of equipment,installed it, its up and running and you get the first bitof data from it. The first glimpse of something you hadnot seen before, that’s really exciting. �

FUSION IN EUROPE | Community | People |

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| Community | People |

little 3He, so that one would have to mineimmense amounts of it. I can’t say if thatwill ever be possible, but surely not in theforeseeable future.

Why is 3He-D fusion under discussion atall? Would it be a better alternative toD-T fusion?

It is often said that 3He-D fusion has theadvantage of neutron free fusion reactions,because it produces alpha particles (4He)and protons. In contrast to neutrons, themovement of these charged particles can

be controlled by magnetic fields. But, if one looks intothe details, it turns out that 3He-D fusion is not com-pletely free of neutrons. This is what I quantified in mythesis. The alpha particles, protons and the deuteronundergo further reactions which do produce parasiteneutrons. The reaction yields less neutrons, with a lowerenergy, but they cannot be neglected.

Will you stay in energy research or even in fusionscience?

I have now applied for a master’s course and I reallyenjoy physics, for instance. I can well imagine to con-tinue in the areas of renewable energies or fusion, maybewith a master’s thesis. But just as I came across 3He-Dfusion and found it a surprisingly fascinating topic, it isalso likely that a completely different, but evenly fasci-nating topic will cross my path next. �

How did you come to choose this topic for your thesisin the first place?

As part of my Bachelor’s course I attended the course“structure of matter” held by Dr. Hans-Stephan Boschfrom IPP. I liked his lecture and approached him aboutdoing my Bachelor’s thesis. We needed to find a topic,which I – not being a physicist – could handle andwhich was related to current scientific activities. Welooked into a few options, among them the comparisonof 3He-D and D-T fusion. After some reading, I found itreally exciting. With the exception of an excursion toWendelstein 7-X and some chapters in Bosch’s lecture,I had not dealt with fusion before.

Assuming that D-T fusion is success-ful. Is there a realistic possibility for3He-D fusion plants in the far fu-ture?

Well, I don’t think so. The main issueis availability. Only traces of 3He areavailable on Earth – not sufficient toenable any usage. As long as themoon’s 3He resources cannot be ex-ploited in an economical way, 3He-Dfusion is not an option in my view.Furthermore, lunar regolith contains

Franziska Biegalke, an environmental sciences studentat Greifswald’s Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University haslooked into the relevance of 3He-D fusion for futurefusion power plants for her Bachelor’s thesis.

Fighting over the Moon’s Helium-3to fuel fusion power plants

The English edition of “Limit”, a science fictionnovel set in a world in which fusion power is aboutto overtake traditional gas and oil business, waspublished in November. The main story unfoldsaround a conflict between China and the US overthe Moon’s Helium-3 (3He) resources which theyneed as fuel for their fusion power plants. Limit,which was originally published in German in2009, is very optimistic about the developmentof fusion power: It is set in the year 2025. In the

real world of today, fusion research focuses on tritium and deuterium(D-T) fusion. 3He-D fusion has been considered on a theoretical level.

(Picture: Randomhouse)

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Community | In dialogue |

Why are you doing a PhDin fusion science?This year’s Association Day at EURATOM-ÖAWfocused on young scientists.

On 18 October 2013, the Association EURATOM-ÖAW organised its 28th Association Day – theannual gathering of the Associations’ scientists

to discuss their work – in Salzburg. The Austrian Asso-ciation forms a stable framework for the fusion-relevantresearch performed by eleven research groups from fiveinstitutions across the country (Universität Innsbruck,TU Wien, Erich Schmid Institut for Material Science,Research Studios Austria and TU Graz). In this context,there are two important tasks to be accomplished by theAssociation: to motivate young people to become partof the “Generation ITER” and to keep a repository offresh knowledge generated in the framework of PhD the-ses. To underline this, the Association invited its youngmembers to present their PhD theses. The invited guestspeaker this year was Prof. Sibylle Günter, ScientificDirector of IPP Garching, who introduced the futureEUROfusion consortium – which also considers “form-ing the generation ITER” to be one of its objectives.

Elisabeth Wieninger and Monika Fischer fromEURATOM-ÖAW asked some of the students why theychose a fusion-relevant topic for their PhD:

More information:http://www.oeaw.ac.at/euratom

“I wasfascinated by plasmas,

and then I found a position formy thesis dealing with plasma

turbulence.”

“I wantto work in an experimen-

tal field with visible results –and I like my colleagues at

the University ofInnsbruck!”

“One ofmy colleagues works with

Plasma-Wall Interactions. I thought‘this is pretty interesting’ and found a thesis

position on a similar project –and somehow everything fell

into place.”

“Ioriginally wanted to

study quantum physics, butI could not find a suitable op-

portunity, so I turned to plasmaphysics, another promising sub-

ject of great diversity.”

25

| Community | In dialogue |

(Picture: ÖAW)

“I wantto create a better world

– and physics gives me thetools for a change on the

energy sector.”

“I startedto study astrophysics, but

after a while I had the urge for anapproach with a sound theoretical ba-sis and turned to plasma physics and

this is definitely not the end ofmy journey.”

“Plasmasare dynamic phenomena ....

the longer I worked with moleculardynamic simulations,

the more involvedI got.“

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FUSION IN EUROPE | Community | In dialogue |

A SUMMER OF FUSION

SUMtRAIc – tokamak operationsPrague12 participants

Summer School onFusion technologies

Karlsruhe60 participants

Summer-Universityfor plasma physics –tokamaks andstellaratorsGreifswald61 participants

It was a plasma physics summer school that got Prof. Hartmut Zohm, director at IPP Garching, hoo-ked on the subject he built his career on. Plasma physics is not a subject taught regularly at manyuniversities, so summer schools are a vital method enabling the European fusion community to

win students and young scientists for this field of research. These schools also provide a sense of theinternational character of fusion science: Students come from all over the world and courses are taughtin English by lecturers from various European laboratories. This summer more than 280 students fromover 20 countries took up the opportunity to get first hand information about fusion.

Picture: KIT

Picture: IPP (Beate Kemnitz)

Picture: IPP AS CR

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| Community | In dialogue |

Half a century ofculham PlasmaPhysics SummerSchool Culham62 participants

carolus Magnus Summer School –the physics behind fusion energyBad Honnef, 68 participants

Picture: CCFE

Picture: FZ Jülich

Plasmasurf – Surfing oceanwaves like electrons surf

plasma wavesOeiras near Lisbon20 participants

Picture: private

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A NEW PHD PROGRAMMEPUtS StUdeNtS FIRSt

Instituto De Plasmas eFusão Nuclear (IPFN)at Instituto SuperiorTécnico Campus.(Picture: IST)

The new Portuguese PhD programme APPLAuSEis very different from standard PhD courses: Ad-dressing physics and engineering students world-

wide, it grants up to ten students a four-year doctoralscholarship. The programme also includes a one-yearsecondment to one of the international institutionsIPFN collaborates with.And stu dents are assigneda personal mentor whowill help him or her tomaximise their potential.The overall objective ofAPPLAuSE is to provideeach student with a broadknowledge in the field ofplasma science and engi-neering. This will enablethem to build a career inareas such as fusion sci-ence, astrophysics, spacescience or high-energy-density physics. The programme is designed to bringstudents into contact with renowned specialists and tomotivate them to develop in-depth expertise in theirchosen area of specialisation. The curriculum sets offwith basic plasma science and continues with con-

trolled nuclear fusion, high-energy-density physics,space and astrophysical plasmas and low temperatureplasma science and engineering.

40 students – eight of them female – applied for thefirst year. Most of them are from Europe, but some

come from Asia, Africaand Latin America. Theapplicants’ backgroundsrange from plasmaphysics, astrophysics andquantum mechanics to in-strumentation, electronicsand lasers. The studentswere mostly attracted bythe novelty and the cur-riculum of the doctoralprogramme, the prestigeof Lisbon Technical Uni -versity, and, of course, bythe included PhD grant.

The selection process is now underway and the coursewill start in January 2014. �

More informationhttp://tinyurl.com/ist-applause

APPLAuSE stands for Advanced Programme

in Plasma Science and Engineering. It is an

English language PhD programme hosted by

Instituto De Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN)

at Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon. The

doctoral scholarships offered by APPLAuse

are supported by the Portuguese

Foundation for Science and Technology.

FUSION IN EUROPE | Community | In dialogue |

29

| NewsFlash |

NEWSFLASH

Ready for the giantsThe ITER Itinerary test convoy, featuring an 800-metric-ton trailer replicating the weight and dimensions ofITER's most exceptional loads, successfully completed its journey on 20 September.

It is one of the specialities of the ITER project: Ninety percent of the seven Members’ contributions will bedelivered “in-kind”, meaning that the Members fabricate components for ITER at home and deliver themto the ITER Organization. That implies the transport of exceptionally large and heavy goods – the ninesegments of the 19 metre wide and 11 metre high vacuum vessel are just one example – from Marseille har-bour to the ITER site.

The convoys will have to cross more than 30 bridges, bypass 16 villages and negotiate 16 roundabouts.France as the host state has widened roads, reinforced bridges and modified intersections to accommodatethe transport. Between September 16 and 20, this Itinerary underwent a reality check: Pulling people out oftheir beds to watch, a 46 metres long and 10 metres high trailer travelled for four consecutive nights the 104kilometre long Itinerary from the village of Berre near Marseille harbour to the ITER site. Bridges along theway were equipped with sensors and further measurements were taken at roundabouts and in villages tomonitor the behaviour of the roads under these exceptional loads.

With the successful completion of the test transport, ITER is now ready for the giants to arrive: The first largecomponents, among them large drain tanks and transformers, will be delivered in 2014. Between 2015 and2017, the largest components will be shipped: the sectors of the vacuum vessel and the toroidal field coils.

More information:http://www.iter.org/transport

(Picture: ITER Organization)

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FUSION IN EUROPE | NewsFlash |

NEWSFLASH

The beauty oftungsten This blue sphere measures abouta twentieth of a millimetre andconsists of pure tungsten. It wasproduced at ForschungszentrumJülich in the electron beam testfacility JUDITH, where Jülich re-searchers expose materials tohigh thermal loads. Inside JU-DITH, even tungsten – the metalwith the highest melting point ofall the elements – can melt andthen solidify again within a frac-tion of a millisecond, formingbizarre shapes. What appear tobe ‘continents’ under a scanningelectron microscope clearly showthat the crystal lattice createdin this pro cess is not uniform.Tungsten is currently the materialof choice for the inner wall of fu-sion reactors.

Forschungszentrum Jülich

28 European countries signed an agreement to work on an energy source for the future:EFDA provides the framework, JET, the Joint European Torus, is the shared experiment, fusion energy is the goal.

Austrian Academy of SciencesAUS TR I A

Association EURATOM –University of Latvia

L AT V I ALithuanian Energy Institute

L I THUAN I A

Ministry of Education and Research ROMAN IA

Ministry of Education, Science, Cultureand Sport

S LOVEN I A

Centro de Investigaciones EnergéticasMedioambientales y Tecnológicas

SPA IN

Swedish Research CouncilSWEDEN

Centre de Recherches en Physiquedes Plasmas

SW I T Z ER L AND

Dutch Institute for FundamentalEnergy Research

THE N E THER LANDS UN I T ED K I NGDOM

EURATOM Hellenic RepublicGRE E C E

Wigner Research Centre for PhysicsHUNGARY

F4E, SPA INFRANC E

Dublin UniversityI R E L AND

Agenzia nazionale per le nuovetecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo

economico sostenibileI TA LY

University of TartuE S TON I A

Finnish Funding Agency for Technologyand InnovationF I N L AND

Commissariat à l’énergie atomique etaux énergies alternatives

FRANC E GERMANY GERMANYMax-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik

GERMANY

BE LG IUMBulgarian Academy of Sciences

BULGAR I AUniversity of Cyprus

C YPRUS

Institute of Plasma PhysicsAcademy of Sciences of the

Czech RepublicC Z E CH R EPUBL I C

Technical University of DenmarkDENMARK

University of MaltaMALTA

Institute of Plasma Physicsand Laser Microfusion

POLANDMinistère de l’Energie

LUX EMBURG

Instituto Superior TécnicoPORTUGAL

Comenius UniversityS LOVAK I A

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EUROPEAN FUSION DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT ISSN 1818-5355