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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
Donald A. Spong, Dennis J. Strickler, Steven P. Hirshman, James F. Lyon, Lee A. Berry, David R. Mikkelsen, Donald A. Monticello, Andrew S. Ware
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 46 | Number 1 | July 2004 | Pages 215-223
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A558
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An important goal for a stellarator design is to incorporate enough flexibility to experimentally test a range of physics issues. The proposed Quasi-Poloidal Stellarator device achieves this by allowing independently variable currents in the modular, vertical field, and toroidal coil sets. Numerical optimizations and modeling show that this can allow significant tests of neoclassical cross-field transport rates, reduced poloidal flow damping (relative to the tokamak), and magnetic island width control. This flexibility is achieved in a unique, very low aspect ratio (R0/<a> = 2.7) two-field period (racetrack-shaped) configuration that generates rotational transform from a combination of internal plasma currents and external shaping.