ADX: a high field, high power density, advanced divertor and RF tokamak
- MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
- Univ. of York (United Kingdom)
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzlerland)
The MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and collaborators are proposing a high-performance Advanced Divertor and RF tokamak eXperiment (ADX) – a tokamak specifically designed to address critical gaps in the world fusion research program on the pathway to next step devices: fusion nuclear science facility (FNSF), fusion pilot plant (FPP), and/or demonstration power plant (DEMO). This high field (≥ 6.5 tesla, 1.5 MA), high power density facility (P/S ~ 1.5 MW/m2) will test innovative divertor ideas, including an ‘X-point target divertor’ concept, at the required performance parameters – reactor-level boundary plasma pressures, magnetic field strengths and parallel heat flux densities entering into the divertor region – while simultaneously producing high performance core plasma conditions that are prototypical of a reactor: equilibrated electrons and ions, regimes with low or no torque, and no fueling from external heating and current drive systems. Equally important, the experimental platform will test innovative concepts for lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) and ion-cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) actuators with the unprecedented ability to deploy launch structures both on the lowmagnetic- field side and the high-magnetic-field side – the latter being a location where energetic plasma-material interactions can be controlled and favorable RF wave physics leads to efficient current drive, current profile control, heating and flow drive. This triple combination – advanced divertors, advanced RF actuators, reactor-prototypical core plasma conditions – will enable ADX to explore enhanced core confinement physics, such as made possible by reversed central shear, using only the types of external drive systems that are considered viable for a fusion power plant. Such an integrated demonstration of high-performance core-divertor operation with steady state sustainment would pave the way toward an attractive pilot plant, as envisioned in the ARC concept (Affordable, Robust, Compact) [B. N. Sorbom, et al., submitted to Fusion Engineering Design, 2014] that makes use of high-temperature superconductor technology – a high-field (9.25 tesla) tokamak the size of the Joint European Torus that produces 270 MW of net electricity.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 1463827
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL-741410; 895963; TRN: US1902330
- Journal Information:
- Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 55, Issue 5; ISSN 0029-5515
- Publisher:
- IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Similar Records
The advanced tokamak path to a compact net electric fusion pilot plant
DIII-D research advancing the physics basis for optimizing the tokamak approach to fusion energy