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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Latest News
What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
Yuqian Chen, Longbin Liu, Yahong Xie, Jianglong Wei, Yuming Gu, Wen Deng, Fang Wang, Lixin Yang, Chundong Hu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 81 | Number 3 | April 2025 | Pages 269-278
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2024.2384669
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutral beam injection is an important auxiliary heating method for magnetic confinement nuclear fusion. To further optimize the steady-state operation of the high-temperature plasma in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), a higher beam energy is required for the high-power, long-pulse neutral beam injection system. The most critical technology to achieve this goal is the upgrade of the ion source accelerator. This paper analyzes the beam optics of the multiaperture accelerator for the extraction of a deuterium ion beam of 120 keV/50 A with a divergence angle of less than 1 deg root-mean-square. The effects of the number of grids, shapes of plasma grids (PGs), grid gaps, voltage ratio, and plasma parameters on beam optics were assessed by numerical simulation. The results allowed optimization of the PG shape; they also indicated that the tetrode configuration can reduce the beam divergence angle effectively while the triode configuration can extract a higher current. These conclusions provide guiding significance for the selection and parameter design of the EAST neutral beam injector ion positive source with a 120-keV accelerator.