Final Report Sustained Spheromak Physics Project FY 1997 - FY 1999

Technical Report · Tue Feb 29 04:00:00 EST 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/793450· OSTI ID:793450

Hooper, E B ^[1]; Hill, D N

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1. LLNL

This is the final report on the LDRD SI-funded Sustained Spheromak Physics Project for the years FY1997-FY1999, during which the SSPX spheromak was designed, built, and commissioned for operation at LLNL. The specific LDRD project covered in this report concerns the development, installation, and operation of specialized hardware and diagnostics for use on the SSPX facility in order to study energy confinement in a sustained spheromak plasma configuration. The USDOE Office of Fusion Energy Science funded the construction and routine operation of the SSPX facility. The main distinctive feature of the spheromak is that currents in the plasma itself produce the confining toroidal magnetic field, rather than external coils, which necessarily thread the vacuum vessel. There main objective of the Sustained Spheromak Physics Project was to test whether sufficient energy confinement could be maintained in a spheromak plasma sustained by DC helicity injection. Achieving central electron temperatures of several hundred eV would indicate this. In addition, we set out to determine how the energy confinement scales with T{sub c} and to relate the confinement time to the level of internal magnetic turbulence. Energy confinement and its scaling are the central technical issues for the spheromak as a fusion reactor concept. Pending the outcome of energy confinement studies now under way, the spheromak could be the basis for an attractive fusion reactor because of its compact size, simply-connected magnetic geometry, and potential for steady-state current drive.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 793450
• Report Number(s): UCRL-ID-137784
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
CONFIGURATION
CONFINEMENT
CONFINEMENT TIME
CONSTRUCTION
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
GEOMETRY
HELICITY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PHYSICS
PLASMA
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TURBULENCE