U.S. Burning Plasma Organization e-News
February 15, 2008 (Issue 17)

CONTENTS

     -- Director's Corner by Jim Van Dam
     -- Announcements
     -- Reports
           - ITER STAC Task T01a: vertical stability control update by Dave Humphreys
           - ITER STAC Tasks T01b & c update by Chuck Kessel
     -- Upcoming 2008 Burning Plasma-Related Events

Dear Burning Plasma Aficionados:

This newsletter provides a short update on U.S. Burning Plasma Organization activities. Comments on articles in the newsletter may be sent to the editor (R. Nazikian rnazikian@pppl.gov) or assistant editor (Emily Hooks ehooks@mail.utexas.edu).

Thank you for your interest in Burning Plasma research in the U.S.!

Director's Corner by J. Van Dam

I’m writing this month’s column on Valentine’s Day, so it seems appropriate to express heartfelt appreciation to a number of people, while also commenting on some recent events.

STAC Issue Working Groups: To begin with, a number of US scientists are working very hard to address urgent issues concerning the ITER design. International working groups have been set up for each of the issues that had been highlighted at the September 2007 meeting of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee. On the US side, this effort is being coordinated by Brad Nelson, engineering manager for the US ITER Project Office. Our profound thanks to all of these people for their valuable work. Their conclusions will be reviewed at a special STAC meeting to be held April 7-9. The STAC will also hold a regular meeting a month later (May 19-21) to review the proposed cost and schedule impacts of the changes that will be a part of the Overall Project Cost and Overall Project Schedule documents being prepared by the ITER Organization.

Burning plasma outreach materials: This week the 2008 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is being held (February 14-18, Boston). On Saturday, February 16, there will be a symposium on magnetic fusion energy research, with six distinguished speakers (http://www.aaas.org/meetings/). During the entire meeting, the US ITER Project Office will have an exhibit about the ITER facility. The exhibition booth features a scale model of the ITER device, display panels that describe the history and mission of the international project, and a 3D movie. The movie begins with an outside view of the Cadarache site, then zooms inside the building that will house the facility, shows a cutaway of the device itself, and further zooms into the plasma to show how it is heated to 100 million degrees. The work on developing these outreach materials was led by Bonnie Hebert of the USIPO, with assistance from the ORNL Creative Media Department. Thanks to Don Batchelor of the USBPO, who provided a good deal of technical input about burning plasma science, including ICRF wave simulations for the 3D movie and a fusion-theme computer game for children.

International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA): The US part of the ITPA and the USBPO were merged on the US national level last year, so that the US members of the ITPA are now part of the USBPO and USBPO topical group members can contribute to ITPA activities. The ITPA on the international level is in the process of being re-organized so as to come under the auspices of the ITER Organization, according to a revised charter that has been approved by the international partners. Upcoming ITPA meetings are listed on the calendar of events in each issue of eNews, as well as on the USBPO web page (http://burningplasma.org/events.html). The next such meeting is of the MHD Topical Group, in Naka, Japan, February 25-29. We are discussing how we could schedule pre-meeting discussions and/or post-meeting reports from US ITPA participants in order to enhance the flow of information related to these meetings. Feedback and suggestions from USBPO members would be welcomed.

Transport Task Force (TTF) Meeting: Here is an advance notice for USBPOers who plan to attend the annual TTF Meeting (March 25-28, Boulder, CO). Wayne Houlberg, who newly joined the Fusion Science and Technology Department of the ITER Organization, will give a talk about transport and integrated modeling needs for ITER. A special evening session during the TTF Meeting has been scheduled for his presentation.

Budget Planning Meeting: Two presentations from the USBPO are on the agenda for the annual OFES Budget Planning Meeting (March 11 and 12, Gaithersburg, MD). One will be an update about USBPO activities, and the other will describe US involvement in the STAC issue working groups. The latter talk will be given by Dr. Rich Hawryluk, a primary scientific leader for this effort.

FY09 fusion budget: The presidential budget proposal for FY 2009 was released two weeks ago, on February 4. It contains a large increase for fusion energy sciences, including the US commitment of $214M for ITER construction. Next week Thursday (February 21), many of us will have an opportunity to visit congressional offices in Washington, D.C., in connection with the annual Fusion Education Day. We hope that this favorable budget will hold up during this election year.

Verification and Validation: Last year, the USBPO Transport Task Force, led by Paul Terry and Ed Doyle, organized a special task group on the subject of verification and validation (V&V), a topic of increasing importance for theory and simulations of burning plasmas. The task group came up with several original contributions to the subject of V&V. The draft of their paper is now ready to be submitted for publication.

Congratulations: A member of the USBPO Council, Steve Cowley, who is currently a professor of physics at UCLA with a part-time appointment also at Imperial College London, has been selected to become the next director of UKAEA Culham Laboratory. We wish him all the best.

Appreciation: Thanks to all the members of the USBPO Council and the leaders and deputy leaders of the 12 Topical Groups for their considerable investment of time and effort. Thanks also to Emily Hooks, our reliable USBPO Administrator, for her indefatigable administrative services, and to Jim DeKock, for managing the web site. And last, but certainly not least, thanks to Raffi Nazikian for faithfully ensuring that this newsletter is published every month!

Announcements

Submit BPO-related announcements for next month’s eNews to Raffi Nazikian at rnazikian@pppl.gov.

Reports

ITER STAC Task T01a: vertical stability control by D. Humphreys

The ITER Design Review of 2007 identified several critical issues still to be addressed before certain elements of the construction phase of ITER should proceed. The ITER Parties are presently engaged in a set of R&D tasks mandated by the ITER STAC to resolve these issues. STAC Task T01a involves analysis of various candidate solutions to address limitations in vertical stability control capability identified in the Design Review. Proposals for augmenting the vertical plasma control capability in ITER include increasing voltage capability of key PF coils, adding copper active control coils either in-vessel or between the vacuum vessel walls, and/or adding in-vessel copper passive stabilizing structures to reduce the instability growth rate. All of these approaches would have a significant impact on the engineering design. Analysis to date indicates that several of these candidate approaches would bring the ITER vertical stability control capability up to the level found necessary in present devices. Analysis is continuing.

Update on Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) activities: Tasks T01b & c by C. Kessel

STAC Task T01b&c involves the plasma shape control and volt-second capability of ITER. The STAC requests the assessment of PF coil current capabilities over a range of planned operating scenarios and determination of whether current saturation can be avoided while maintaining plasma control. If more PF coil current is required to startup and control the plasma, one possibility is to subcool the PF coils to gain more current carrying capacity. In addition, the group is asked to assess methods for conserving volt-seconds in the current rampup phase in order to guarantee the 400 sec flattop burn at 15 MA. The work plan for this area has 5 major components, 1) definition of operating space available with the existing PF coils, and with upgrades to PF coils, 2) establishment of the feedback control current headroom required in each PF coil, 3) benchmarking studies between the free-boundary evolution codes used (such as DINA, TSC, CORSICA), 4) documentation of present tokamak experimental experience in plasma startup flattop. The magnet division at the IO has already begun to redefine some PF coils requirements and capabilities based on the STAC review. The STAC assessment will contribute to decisions on a range of possible upgrades to allow a more robust operating space for ITER.