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CCFE gets the Gold again

20/05/2013 00:00:00

For the second year in a row, CCFE has received a Gold Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

Gold is the top award in this category and is a reflection of the high standards of safety maintained by all at CCFE. The award was collected at a ceremony by Sam Jackson (SHE and Management Systems Group Leader – middle), Roland Munro-Smith (Area Safety Co-ordinator – left) and Julian Lewis (Lead Safety Rep – right). The ceremony was attended by about 1,000 people from around the world, reflecting the international reach of RoSPA.

Opening the door to JET restart

10/05/2013 00:00:00

The countdown to JET's next run of fusion tests is on, as CCFE engineers move the facility into ‘Restart' mode.

Shown right, a port on the JET vacuum vessel is opened so equipment can be taken in to get restart activities underway.

CCFE, as operator of JET, is responsible for getting the machine ready so that researchers from around Europe (co-ordinated by the European Fusion Development Agreement) can start experiments. Nine months of intensive engineering work since the last scientific campaign have finished and preparations for the next campaign can begin. The first task is the ‘pumpdown' – the pumping of air from the interior of the tokamak to create the ultra-high vacuum needed for fusion plasmas. The vacuum is around 5x10^-8 mbar, or 5x10^-11 atmospheres (imagine taking a box with 500,000,000,000 atoms and pumping it out to leave just one). The vessel is baked to 200 degrees Celsius to remove impurities, and tested for any leaks that could affect the vacuum. This is followed by a structured programme of bringing all the machine systems back to life – power supplies, heating systems, diagnostic measuring equipment – and checking them before the first plasmas are created later this summer.
Video: What happens during a JET restart?

Since the end of the previous campaign in July 2012, sample tiles from JET's new ‘ITER-like' inner wall have been removed by CCFE's remote handling team. European fusion scientists are analysing how the hot plasma inside JET has affected the beryllium and tungsten tiles. Engineers have also installed a special tungsten divertor test module. This involves some of the tiles around the bottom of the vessel being deliberately misaligned to increase their exposure to the JET plasma, so researchers can see how the materials respond.

Recent months have seen improvements to diagnostics and radiofrequency heating components, and an extensive programme of maintenance and refurbishment work on machine systems outside the vacuum vessel has been completed.

A particular highlight of the engineering work was the calibration of a diagnostic for calculating neutrons produced in JET experiments; a key measure of fusion power levels. As reported on EFDA's website, the calibration was a delicate operation – but one that is essential, both for accurately measuring neutrons in future JET campaigns, in gaining experience for full power deuterium-tritium tests, and in learning for ITER.

Tim Jones, CCFE's JET Operations Contract Senior Manager, commented: “This was a demanding and complex engineering programme. To have completed it safely and successfully is a tribute to the hard work, commitment and professionalism of everyone in the teams who prepared and carried it out.”

Above: Remote Handling engineers worked alongside physicists to calibrate spectroscopy diagnostic systems inside JET using this light source target.

CCFE articles picked for plasma physics ‘best of 2012’

09/05/2013 00:00:00

Scientific papers by CCFE researchers have been featured in the 2012 highlights collections of three leading international plasma physics publications.

The journals produce annual collections of the most novel and frequently downloaded work published during the year. A paper by Ian Chapman (pictured right) was included in the American Institute of Physics' Physics of Plasmas Editor's Choice 2012. Two CCFE articles featured in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 2012 highlights – authored by Eva Havlícková and PhD student Jack Snape (pictured below right). And CCFE research was represented in three of the 20 most popular papers from Nuclear Fusion, with contributions from Geoff Cordey, Ian Chapman and Wojtek Fundamenski.

Between them, the three journals published over 1,600 articles during the year, so being among the handful selected for the ‘best of 2012' is a considerable achievement.

Areas covered by the six CCFE articles ranged from the theoretical modelling of plasma stability and confinement, to assessment of recent MAST and JET experimental results, and studies of performance for ITER and other future fusion devices.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of CCFE, was understandably delighted: “This is a tribute to our physicists and the quality of their work,” he said. “The variety of topics in these papers shows what a dynamic research programme we have at CCFE and underlines our reputation as one of the world's top fusion laboratories.”

Links:

AIP Physics of Plasmas Editor's Choice 2012: http://librarians.aip.org/promote/emails/POPEditorsChoiceWV.html

IOP Nuclear Fusion Highlights of 2012:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0029-5515/page/highlights-2012

IOP Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Highlights 2012:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0741-3335/page/Highlights%20of%202012

So far, so good for ITER neutral beam design work

01/05/2013 00:00:00

One of CCFE's design projects for ITER passed a key review with flying colours earlier this month.

A team of five engineers from Culham went to Cadarache for the Preliminary Design Review of the ITER neutral beam system's Beam Line Vessel and Beam Source Vessel. These components will be welded together to form a large steel case housing the tokamak's neutral beam heating system. This is a lot more complicated than it sounds – and designers have to make sure that the vessels adhere to French nuclear regulations, as well as passing stringent stress analysis, including seismic analysis to show they can cope with ‘worst case scenarios' like earthquakes.

CCFE is working on the Beam Line Vessel and several other components of the ITER neutral beam line. The Spanish fusion association Ciemat is also involved as a third party, designing magnetic shielding components for the neutral beam system. Three years in, the projects are nearing completion and the Preliminary Design Review is a major milestone confirming that they are on track. This just leaves the Final Design Review in a year's time as the last hurdle to be negotiated before the procurement of components can begin.

“We were pleased with how the review went – the outcome was positive for CCFE,” says Robin Stafford-Allen, one of the project team. “The number of design comments was small and the panel expressed satisfaction with the work that CCFE and Ciemat have done.”

CCFE is involved in a number of consortia that have been awarded contracts to develop ITER systems by the European domestic agency Fusion for Energy. Other areas covered include neutronics (the study of how fast fusion neutrons affect surrounding materials), ion cyclotron resonance heating, and studies for magnetic diagnostics.

In the case of the neutral beam vessel design, the Culham team have been able to use experience from JET systems – a JET neutral beam injector is pictured left – although everything is a lot bigger on ITER.

“We're scaling up to something more than twice as big as JET and dealing with one million volts instead of 130,000 volts,“ explains Robin. “Also, the neutral beam will inject negative ions, whereas JET uses positive ones, a big difference in itself. So while similarities exist, there is a lot to get your teeth into as a design engineer.”

Although the two-day review panel left little time for viewing the ITER construction site, Robin got an impression of the strong activity happening at Cadarache:

“The civil engineering is moving ahead and is well beyond the ‘hole in the ground’ stage. And opening an autonomous ITER site at Cadarache, including the headquarters building, has brought benefits. The whole project is a mammoth undertaking but our team is glad to be playing a small part in bringing the ITER machine to life.”

Too hot to handle

19/04/2013 00:00:00

Remote handling technology will be a big feature of fusion power stations. Engineers from Culham Centre for Fusion Energy have been exploring what remotely operated gadgets are likely to be used in DEMO, the prototype power plant that will follow ITER and put the first fusion electricity on to the grid.

A CCFE study for the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) has started to define the remote handling systems that would be needed for the Active Maintenance Facility (AMF) of DEMO. The AMF is a large facility located next to the reactor hall that will play an important role in keeping the plant running. It will act as a holding bay for parts being prepared for installation and components that have been removed from the tokamak for maintenance or dismantling. Many of the components brought into the AMF will have been contaminated with tritium fuel and irradiated by continued exposure to high-speed neutrons. This means remote handling tools will be needed to deal with them – which is where the CCFE work comes in.

In at the ground floor

With many years of experience from remote handling operations on JET, the CCFE team was a logical choice to carry out the study. Justin Thomas of the CCFE Remote Handling Group explains:

“We're starting with a blank piece of paper, as very little work has been done on this up until now,” he says. “We've been looking at how to move components into the AMF and then take them apart for waste disposal or recycling. Some of the manipulators and booms could be similar to the ones we use on JET, but with a different toolkit for the very specific tasks involved. It's exciting to be right in at the ‘ground floor' of the project, but also a bit daunting as there are still many unknown factors with a machine that won't be built until around the year 2030,” Justin adds.

Components handled in the AMF will vary in size, shape and radioactivity, so the remote handling system must be adaptable enough to cover all the bases. Parts from inside the tokamak will have the highest activity and will require forced cooling for many months before decontamination and dismantling; the tools used to handle these must be straightforward and durable. ‘Ex-vessel' items, such as diagnostics, cryoplant, heating and vacuum systems, will have lower activation levels; more sophisticated remote handling methods can be developed for these items. Different remote-controlled machines are required for each stage of the process.

Although DEMO's Active Maintenance Facility is currently estimated to be six times the size of ITER's (at 737,000 cubic metres), there is still pressure to get the most out of the space. At any one time, there could be large components being moved in and out of the reactor hall, others in storage, and even more being maintained or upgraded. Much of this work concerns the blanket modules and divertor cassettes that line the inside of the DEMO tokamak, 128 in total. These will harvest the fusion energy from the device before it is sent on to the electricity network. The life expectancy for these 40-tonne, 12-metre long modules could range between two and five years, and the AMF might be expected to accommodate up to 256 of them at once. So a well-designed remote handling system that keeps an efficient two-way flow between the tokamak and the AMF is a must.

Test facility

One of the biggest challenges for the designers will be in developing tools that can cope with the higher radiation doses expected in power reactors – significantly greater than in fusion experiments like JET or even ITER. “The remote handling equipment must be capable of working reliably and for long periods in high radiation doses.” says Justin Thomas. “Because of this it's important to accurately estimate DEMO's radiation levels as this will guide the equipment design. A remote handling test facility for DEMO would be a logical way of checking the technology works first.”

After completing two feasibility studies to EFDA's satisfaction, the CCFE team is poised to start another work package and is now moving on to produce a functional concept using more detailed data.

The work, which was presented at the Symposium on Fusion Technology conference at Liège, Belgium, last September, is part of a larger report on DEMO remote handling, involving fusion laboratories from around Europe. The results will feed in to the DEMO design studies EFDA is co-ordinating to make sure Europe is a leading player in the race to commercial fusion power.

Image details:

Top: Concept for remote handling device working on a DEMO component

Middle: The Remote Handling Control Room at JET

Bottom: Design drawing of DEMO Active Maintenance Facility (foreground) and tokamak hall

MP enthused by fusion

17/04/2013 00:00:00

Alok Sharma, Member of Parliament for Reading West, visited Culham recently to be briefed on fusion research and visit the JET and MAST experiments.

Mr Sharma, who works closely with the Institute of Physics in publicising physics in the House of Commons and is one of the Conservative Party's vice chairmen, was interested in the research undertaken here at Culham and was supportive of the long-term case for fusion as an energy source of the future.

He recognised CCFE's key role as part of a wider science and technology economy in South Oxfordshire and was particularly pleased to see that the Culham apprenticeship scheme has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Mr Sharma also welcomed the announcement (on the same day as his visit) of a University Technical College for Didcot – an initiative supported by the University of Reading and CCFE.

Alok Sharma said: “I was delighted to be invited to see the experiments taking place at Culham. The advances that have been made at the centre here provide an excellent example of the enormous contribution that physics makes to our economy. I was also very pleased to hear about the significant investments that CCFE are making in apprenticeships and in the new University Technical College, which will provide excellent opportunities for many local young people.”

Alok Sharma MP is pictured (right) with CCFE's Head of Technology and Future Projects, Martin Cox, outside JET's remote handling training facility.

Make a difference to everyone’s future - work at CCFE

09/04/2013 00:00:00

On 23 April, CCFE will be holding a Recruitment Fair at Culham Science Centre. If you have an interest in working in fusion and helping to develop this exciting energy technology, the event will be a chance to meet our staff, talk about job opportunities and have a tour of the fusion facilities.

Current positions at CCFE include, but are not limited to, Electrical Technicians, Mechanical Technicians, Electrical Engineers, Software Engineers and Research Physicists. We can offer a wide range of employee benefits including excellent professional development and mentoring programmes, a final salary pension scheme, bonus scheme, flexible working, and relocation expenses.

The Recruitment Fair will be on between 4.30pm and 8.00pm on Tuesday 23 April – registration is required beforehand, so to book your place and confirm your area of interest please contact Alanna O’Connor at alanna.o’connor@ccfe.ac.uk or phone 01235 466831.

Download a PDF poster with further details of the event.

Awards treble for apprentices

04/04/2013 00:00:00

Three CCFE apprentices, Lydia Feasey, Dominic Callaghan and Paul Jepson, recently won Apprentice of the Year awards at the Engineering Trust's Annual Apprentice Award ceremony.

Lydia Feasey won the Third Year Apprentice of the Year Award for 2012 (the third year in a row she has received an award); Dominic Callaghan collected the Second Year Apprentice of the Year Award for 2012; and Paul Jepson was runner-up for the First Year Apprentice of the Year Award.

The event is organised by the Engineering Trust, a charity that promotes engineering apprenticeships in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire in collaboration with its operating subsidiary ISIS Training Group. This year's ceremony took place at the Enterprise Centre at Marlborough School, Woodstock on 21 March.

Stephen Hall, CCFE's Apprentice Training Manager, said: “This is an outstanding achievement for our scheme. Around 50 companies were going for these awards, so to win them reflects on the high standard of apprentice training at CCFE and of the staff involved in the programme. Most of all it is a tribute to the exceptional quality of our apprentices.”

Photo details

Top: Dominic Callaghan, Stephen Hall and Lydia Feasey.

Opposite: Paul Jepson with fellow nominee Michael Learoyd.

Find out more about apprenticeships at CCFE: www.culhamapprenticeshipscheme.com

CCFE's slice of Raspberry Pi

03/04/2013 00:00:00

Video display screens could become cheaper and more accessible for businesses thanks to a new Raspberry Pi-based control system developed at CCFE.

Programmers from Culham have harnessed the power of the Raspberry Pi budget mini-computer to create software for versatile yet cost-effective video displays.

They have tested the software on a prototype nine-screen video wall, shown in the clip below. The wall has been in use for several months in the foyer of one of the buildings at CCFE, home of the JET European nuclear fusion research facility, displaying videos and web pages for staff and visitors. Each screen in the wall employs a standard monitor and a Raspberry Pi, with a single additional Raspberry Pi controlling the wall as a whole.

For large video displays, employing multiple smaller screens can be a less costly option than buying a single large one – and allows more creative possibilities for showing different imagery across individual or multiple screens. However, the system can be applied just as well to one single display screen.

Licensing issues for the software are being considered, with the aim of allowing both commercial and non-commercial use of this technology.

Alex Goodyear, who developed the program and video wall with colleague Colin Hogben, explains:

“This could open up the use of video walls for more shops, company reception areas, public buildings – anywhere that needs eye-catching but cheaper visual displays. We've been delighted by the results so far and want to make this more widely available.

“Our software makes it possible to achieve professional results for significantly less money than existing control systems. It is another example of the innovative ways in which the Raspberry Pi is being applied for low-cost technology solutions.”

Features and benefits

1. Use of the open source Raspberry Pi platform – shortlisted as the greatest British innovation of the 21^st century by the Science Museum.

2. Flexible, manufacturer-independent – using different display screens (size, resolution, orientation) from different manufacturers in the same video wall.

3. Flexible content display – web pages, photos, videos and remote desktops in any mixture covering all or parts of the same video wall.

4. Creative wall/display topology – one image on the wall, a single image repeated on each screen, a fragmented image dependent on screen positioning (see images right).

5. Cost-effective – based on the Raspberry Pi, enhanced with innovative software, benefitting from the open market for computer or razor edge TV screens.

6. Making video walls more widely available – schools and colleges, research laboratories, SMEs, public notice boards, art galleries and museums, conferences and exhibitions, concerts and other events, shop windows.

Video: demonstration of the video wall in action

For more information on the system please email videowall@ccfe.ac.uk.

‘Fantastic' microscopes enhance school science curriculum

02/04/2013 00:00:00

Staff and pupils at Radley C of E Primary School near Oxford are delighted with the purchase of six new microscopes following a donation from CCFE's sponsorship fund.

An unused classroom area of the school has recently been refurbished with a grant from Oxfordshire County Council to provide a purpose-built science laboratory, and Science Co-ordinator Julie Ilsley applied for sponsorship funds from CCFE to purchase microscopes for use by the children in this new facility.

The science laboratory is in an ideal location for collecting samples with easy access to their pond and fields and next to the ICT suite to aid with science projects. The microscopes will be used for science lessons and by the after school science club.

Susan Hayward from the CCFE Communications Group went along to the school to present the sponsorship money and meet the children and staff. She was also delighted to receive a hand-made ‘thank you' card showing all the different areas which the children are planning to use their new equipment to investigate.

“I would like to thank CCFE for their kind donation to purchase our new fantastic microscopes,” said Rachel Fleming, Head Teacher Radley C of E Primary School. “We are all looking forward to using them to enhance our science curriculum, particularly with our nature projects.”

New science college to boost local skills base

28/03/2013 00:00:00

CCFE is supporting a new educational establishment in Oxfordshire that could help the county to become a national centre of excellence in science research, engineering and enterprise.

The Department for Education today approved a bid to develop a new University Technical College (UTC) in Didcot.

Based on the new Great Western Park development, the UTC will specialise in science and engineering and provide a high-quality statutory education option for 14 to 19 year olds interested in pursuing these careers.

The UTC is being led by Oxford & Cherwell Valley College with support from academic and industry partners that include the University of Reading, Royal Holloway University of London and leading employers. The employer partners include CCFE, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Milton Park Innovation Centre, Oxford Instruments, JEOL UK Ltd, International Space Innovation Centre, BMW, Unipart Group, Simon Hegele Logistics and Services and MetalTech.

Students of the UTC will have the opportunity to develop sought-after specialist technical skills and knowledge while keeping broader options open. They will study a traditional curriculum, comprising core GCSEs, BTEC qualifications and A-levels, alongside their chosen specialism, providing them with a variety of progression routes into employment, higher level study and apprenticeships.

When operating at full capacity, the UTC will take up to 600 students on a non-selective basis from a catchment area that includes postcodes within an approximate 15 mile radius of Didcot. The UTC will open for its first intake in September 2015.

Head of CCFE Steve Cowley said: “We continue to have problems in recruiting the skilled technical staff needed to maintain and expand our work programmes and attribute this directly to apprentice training going out of fashion in the mid-1990s and post graduate training diminishing at the same time.The UTC, coupled with suitable employment and further development opportunities, will greatly assist in addressing skill shortages.”

Culham backs Government nuclear roadmap

26/03/2013 00:00:00

A new Government report has set out a strategy for nuclear energy in the UK and underlined fusion's huge potential.

The Nuclear Research and Development Advisory Board, established under the Chairmanship of the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor Sir John Beddington, has today published its review. It includes recommendations for developing the expertise and skills needed to secure nuclear's role in the UK's long-term energy mix and position the UK as a world leader in nuclear research.

A key recommendation is the establishment of a £15 million National Nuclear Users' Facility (NNUF). This will provide state-of-the-art microtesting equipment to develop new materials that improve safety, reduce the waste burden and increase efficiency of advanced nuclear systems. Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is one of the partners in NNUF, along with the National Nuclear Laboratory and Dalton Cumbrian Facility. The users will come from academia, industry and the national labs themselves.

The report also notes the potential of fusion power to be produced in the second half of this century, and the “world-leading role that the UK is playing in the global development of fusion technologies and capability”. It highlights the economic benefits to the UK from fusion – British firms have already won over £200 million in contracts for the international next-step fusion project ITER. The report goes on to point out areas of synergy in fission and fusion research. CCFE is currently developing these synergies – in materials research (work is already underway on a new materials laboratory at Culham), computational nuclear analysis, and robotic maintenance systems.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (pictured), said: “This roadmap is a vital part of ensuring the UK can deliver its nuclear new build programme. We are ready to play a full role in the research effort, working with the Government and our partners from industry and universities. Especially exciting is the new National Nuclear Users' Facility which, with the recent advances incomputational material design and microtesting, will enable us and our partners to developmaterials for safer, cheaper and more sustainable nuclear systems.

“We also welcome the review's support for fusion and the recognition of Culham's work to keep the UK in a leading position in this technology. Fusion has the potential to transform the world's energy supply and it is important that we retain our capability in this area.”

Reports

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has issued a series of reports on UK nuclear strategy based on the Beddington panel's review. Visit the BIS website to view the documents.

Jaimee signs up for National Apprenticeship Week

15/03/2013 00:00:00

CCFE's Jaimee Dawson joined apprentices from around the country who are being recognised for their contribution to creating some of England's finest and most well-respected exports and goods.

The ‘Made by apprentices' project, which is being launched during National Apprenticeship Week (11-15 March), sees the talents of apprentices celebrated as they are asked to put their names on their handiwork. Apprentices from manufacturer Rolls Royce, bridal wear company Sassi Holford and BAE Systems are among those who have each made a little piece of history by signing their names on a car engine, a designer wedding gown and a submarine.

Jaimee demonstrated her skills by signing a test component at Europe's leading fusion facility JET, using the welding tools she is training with. This was particularly appropriate as her aspiration is to become a welding engineer. Her photo was used for the ‘Made by apprentices' campaign and has been included in 10 Downing Street's apprenticeship picture gallery, as well as being featured by the Oxford Mail.

Jaimee said: “I'm delighted to represent the many fantastic goods and services which are ‘Made by apprentices' in Oxfordshire. Being part of such an important research project is very rewarding and exciting. When leaving school I was weighing up my options and chose this apprenticeship because of the opportunities that it was offering. Nowhere else in the country could I have played a part in developing fusion energy.”

Also to mark National Apprenticeship Week, CCFE apprentices Lydia Feasey and Jake Payne took part in the Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Champions event at Oxford United Football Club. Lydia was named as one of the 2013 Champions and helped to choose the ‘Man of the Match' for Oxford United's match against Barnet (the presentation is shown left). Fellow apprentice Jake took part in a football skills competition on the pitch at half time.

The CCFE Apprenticeship Scheme continues to go from strength to strength, with 28 apprentices going through the training programme in the first eight years. As a result of its success, the organisation aims to increase its number of apprenticeships over the coming years.

Stephen Hall, CCFE Apprenticeship Training Manager, explained: “We believe very strongly in the value that apprentices can bring to us. By year three and four our apprentices are already contributing a great deal and we begin seeing a return on investment. By the time they complete their apprenticeship it becomes a huge cost benefit to CCFE. Our apprentices have got the technical training and intellectual knowledge, they know the people, the systems, and they've grown with the organisation. They get excellent training opportunities and we get well-trained staff who can hit the ground running.”

Links:

Culham Apprenticeship Scheme: http://www.culhamapprenticeshipscheme.com/

National apprenticeships website: http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/

10 Downing Street apprenticeship picture gallery: http://pinterest.com/pin/75927943690135183/

Oxford Mail article – Apprenticeships on rise as student numbers fall: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10287515.Apprenticeships_on_rise_as_student_numbers_fall/

Come and see why it's cool to be hot!

07/03/2013 00:00:00

CCFE's fusion roadshow will be appearing at two events this month. We will be at the 'Science in Your World' launch event for the Oxfordshire Science Festival in Oxford's Bonn Square on Saturday 9 March (10am to 4pm) – a hands-on fair with 16 local organisations demonstrating all manner of amazing science activities.

Then from Thursday 14 March to Sunday 17 March, a CCFE team will be at the Big Bang Fair at London's ExCeL arena – the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK.

We will have magnet games, remote handling demonstrations, plasma balls, vacuum chambers and more. Scientists and engineers from Culham will also be on hand to answer your questions. So if you can make it, do come along to meet us and find out more about how fusion researchers are bringing the stars to earth.

More information:

Oxfordshire Science Festival

The Big Bang Fair

Robot builders come face-to-face with the real thing

04/03/2013 00:00:00

Students are hoping that seeing real-life robots at CCFE will spur them on to success in a national contest.

Cranbrook School in Kent, Headington School in Oxford, John Mason School in Abingdon and Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham are among those competing in the Student Robotics national competition. Since November, 36 teams of students from 15-18 years old have been designing, constructing and testing robots, and the winner will be decided during a finals day at the University of Southampton at Easter.

Contestants are being supported throughout by mentors from university and industry. As well as as visiting the schools, the mentors organise “Tech Days” for the participants to bring their robots along for technical advice, meet the other teams, exchange ideas and show off their progress so far.

CCFE engineer Andrew Busse is one of the mentors and arranged for the students to see technology in action at a Tech Day at Culham on Saturday 23 February. Remote-controlled arms are used inside the Joint European Torus (JET) – the world's largest fusion energy experiment – to carry out a range of jobs, from replacing multi-million-pound components down to everyday tasks like welding, wiring and even vacuum cleaning.

“It was an exciting day,” said Andrew. “The students got to watch our engineers using remote-handling arms in JET as well as picking up tips for the competition – although our machines are of course rather bigger than theirs! The students were really enthusiastic. Hopefully we can help them towards victory at the finals day.”

More information on the Student Robotics competition.

MAST update - Winter 2012/13

28/02/2013 00:00:00

MAST is being made ready for Campaign M9, the last set of plasma experiments before the MAST-Upgrade shutdown begins in late 2013. Meanwhile preparations for the upgrade continue in the MAST complex, where machine components are being assembled (see photo right).

Facility status

The high temperature bake of MAST took place in December. After some delays, all power supplies are ready and commissioning has started with the aim of achieving plasmas by mid-March. It is hoped to complete vessel conditioning with plasmas and carry out the first boronisation by Easter. The main physics programme should now begin after Easter.

Heating systems

Good progress has been made on the 28GHz Electron Bernstein Wave system, with the support of John Caughman and Tim Bigelow from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA. The MAST calorimeter and waveguide rebuild/reconfiguration projects are complete and operation into the torus is presently scheduled for early March. The gyrotron was commissioned locally to 150kW/120ms and has been operated at full power into the MAST calorimeter.

Diagnostics

Most diagnostics have now been re-installed and are ready to go or awaiting calibration. The disruption mitigation system has been repaired and re-installed. New diagnostics for Campaign M9 include:

Coherence imaging (with Australian National University, Durham University);
Proton detector (with Florida International University, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory);
Doppler back-scattering (with University of California, Los Angeles);
Ball-pen probe.

MAST Programme Advisory Committee

MAST programme leaders presented their priorities and plans for M9 in a meeting on 28 November. They were also discussed at the MAST Programme Advisory Committee meeting on 14 December. The committee was strongly supportive of the proposed programme.

MAST-Upgrade 50T crane

Following the successful installation, commissioning and load testing of the new MAST-Upgrade 50-tonne crane, handover of the completed and approved QA build file took place on Friday 15 February. The file handover is formal recognition that the crane is ready for its role in MAST-Upgrade. It will have the job of lifting the tokamak out of the machine area for its refit, then back again at the end of the shutdown. The file was handed to CCFE project supervisor Dave Sutton by contractor Bramley Engineering's director and project manager Graham Bramley in the presence of John Hill (CCFE 50t crane project manager), Emma Bramley (Bramley Engineering contracts manager), and Mark Cleverly (CCFE QA project manager).

CCFE part of Oxfordshire 'City Deal' success

20/02/2013 00:00:00

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has been involved in a successful 'City Deal' bid that should attract further investment in Oxfordshire's science facilities.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg this week announced that Oxford/Oxfordshire was one of twenty areas around the UK that had won City Deal status, giving them greater powers to launch ambitious local economic strategies with less involvement from central Government.

Oxford/Oxfordshire will use its City Deal to accelerate the growth of its knowledge economy by building on the strong existing base – including significant clusters in bio-sciences, space technology and cryogenics, two world-class universities and internationally-recognised ‘Big Science' research centres including Culham Science Centre (pictured above) and the Harwell Oxford campus.

CCFE has had a major input into the bidding process, and will continue to play its part over the next year as the City Deal proposals are finalised.

David Martin, CCFE's Head of Operations and Programme Delivery, said:

“CCFE is pleased to have contributed to this game-changing opportunity. This will provide the narrative for discussions within Oxfordshire on how Government money should be used to drive growth in the county for infrastructure and science and business. We are developing our initial proposals in readiness for discussions at local and government level when the opportunity arrives. This is a significant step forward for Oxfordshire and will hopefully result in CCFE and its collaborators being able to pursue our technology and skills aspirations.”

An AMAZE-ing project

19/02/2013 00:00:00

CCFE has begun work on an exciting new collaborative materials research programme, 'AMAZE' (Additive Manufacturing Aiming towards Zero waste and Efficient production of high-tech metal products).

This work is part of an international partnership being co-ordinated by the European Space Agency and is being 50% funded by the EU to the tune of €10 million.

CCFE's role in the project, for which it will receive £500,000, will be to investigate the joining of materials for high heat-flux applications. This is of real interest in the divertor region of a fusion tokamak as outlined in Missions 2, 3, and 6 of the European Fusion Development Agreement's fusion roadmap.

The collaboration – comprising 28 partners in total – will aim to set up four pilot factories producing additively manufactured materials by 2016 for use in the fields of aeronautics, space, nuclear fusion and automative manufacturing.

Chris Waldon of CCFE's Central Engineering Department has a leading role in the project: "This area represents a vital challenge for fusion and underpins CCFE's credibility as a future fusion power plant design centre. Collaborating with industry and academia provides us with an opportunity to help bridge the gap from science to the realisation of optimised engineering solutions."

MEP fully behind fusion

08/02/2013 00:00:00

Peter Skinner, Member of the European Parliament for the South East of England, visited Culham on Friday 1 February for briefings on fusion research and a tour of the JET experiment.

Mr Skinner holds an influential position in the European Parliament, drafting the recent EU position on nuclear research, and his support for JET, ITER and fusion in general is vital in future funding negotiations.

He was impressed with what he heard and saw at Culham and his earlier visit to STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory : “I was delighted to visit both Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, witnessing first-hand the excellent work they are doing in the field of science and development. Both the UK and the EU must continue to support and invest in such organisations, not only to create jobs and growth but also to ensure that the UK is at the forefront of scientific research and technological advancement.”

Photo: Lorne Horton of the European Fusion Development Agreement (left) with Peter Skinner during his tour of JET

Joint donation buys school microwave kit

07/02/2013 00:00:00

Physics lessons at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford have been enhanced thanks to donations from CCFE.

The school has used the money to buy a microwave kit for use by different year groups for practical physics lessons, including experiments involving reflection, refraction, interference and diffraction.

CCFE engineer Robin Stafford Allen was a winner in last year's I'm an Engineer, Get Me Out of Here science communication contest and put his prize money towards the school's equipment. This has been combined with a donation from the CCFE Sponsorship Fund.

“Thank you to CCFE and Robin for their donation to purchase this equipment, which for our physics department is ‘life changing',” said Physics teacher, Adam Easton. “We are already using it for a range of practical sessions across the age ranges including a substantial part of the ‘A' Level curriculum.”

Robin visited the school to meet the students and see the microwave kit. “I am extremely pleased to see the prize money go toward a 'science-in-school' physics project in an area that may inspire some students to someday join the team of engineers and physicists here at Culham. It was a great pleasure to see that both the teaching staff and the students were excited about the possibilities of this new piece of equipment.”

Photo details: Physics teacher Adam Easton with sixth form physics students and CCFE engineer Robin Stafford Allen at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford.

Beryllium analysis laboratory takes the top spot

05/02/2013 00:00:00

CCFE's Health Physics Group's continued excellence in beryllium analysis has resulted in the laboratory being ranked number one for accuracy in global testing trials.

The latest results from the BePAT (Beryllium Proficiency Analytical Testing) programme, organised by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, indicate that CCFE ranks highest for accuracy of analysis from among the 41 labs from America, France and the UK that took part in the scheme. This is a validation of the team's expertise, especially as all the other labs use significantly more expensive analytical instruments. Participation in such inter-comparison programmes is considered to be an essential part of maintaining quality accreditation.

Excellence in beryllium testing is of crucial importance for CCFE now and in the future. The 'ITER-like' inner wall – comprising beryllium and tungsten tiles – currently installed in JET, and how it behaves in fusion plasma conditions, forms a major element of JET's work as a testbed for ITER operations. Keeping tabs on the distribution of beryllium inside the vessel is crucial in enabling CCFE engineers to work safely with this toxic element.

Darryl Campling, CCFE Health Physics Group Leader explained: “The participating labs use a variety of analysis techniques in their measurement of the samples,” he said. “The results show that our lab is the equal of any other in the world.”

Looking to the future he added: “One of the other methods used by some labs in the BePAT programme over the last few years – and one that gives very good results – is a fluorescence detection technique. Here the sample is heated in the presence of ammonia bi-fluoride and the light created in a fluorescent reaction with the Be is measured. We are currently investigating it as it could be quicker and does not involve the use of hot acids and acetylene gas.”

Above: Staff from the CCFE Health Physics Group (l to r) – Chris Roberts, Ilona Karnowska, Brian Mennie, Etienne Letellier, Monika Piatkowska, Martin Chandler and Tony Gabbidon.

CCFE welcomes European fusion roadmap

25/01/2013 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley has called the European Fusion Development Agreement's new roadmap document “the path to a fusion future.”

The EFDA roadmap sets out in detail the steps required for Europe to produce electricity from fusion by the year 2050. The work is divided into eight missions, each with plans for three phases: 2014-2020; 2021-2030; and 2031-2050. Starting with Europe's contribution to the construction and operation of the international ITER experiment, it progresses to the prototype fusion powerplant DEMO, with increasing involvement from industry as the technology reaches a commercial stage.

The result is a realistic and achievable plan based on existing funding predictions, which gives CCFE and other fusion laboratories across Europe a clear focus when planning their domestic research programmes.

Professor Cowley said: “EFDA Leader Dr Francesco Romanelli has done a wonderful job in putting the roadmap together. We will play a crucial part in implementing it: firstly, as operator of JET, which has a pivotal role in the roadmap; second as a major participant in ITER; and thirdly in our work to design and prepare DEMO. It is a very good unifying document – one which CCFE is in direct agreement with, and one which will be critical in helping secure funding for fusion research.”

A PDF of ‘Fusion Electricity – A roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy' can be downloaded at the EFDA website: http://www.efda.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JG12.356-web.pdf?91a98e

Stellarators open up a whole new 3D world for MAST

24/01/2013 00:00:00

Getting a complete picture of how plasmas perform in MAST has just become easier – thanks to expertise borrowed from a very different type of fusion machine.

The tokamak is not the only route to fusion power. Scientists around the world are looking at other methods of bringing the stars down to earth, and one of the main alternatives is known as a stellarator.

The stellarator, like the tokamak, uses magnetic fields to control hot plasmas in which fusion reactions can be created to produce energy. Where it differs is in the way these fields are created. To confine the plasma, it is necessary to put a twist in the magnetic field. The tokamak drives an electric current through the plasma to produce this twist. With the stellarator, the twist is provided by twisted magnetic coils outside of the plasma. Stellarators have been around for longer than tokamaks, dating back to the early 1950s, but the challenges of building such intricate machines have slowed progress. However, the construction of the advanced W 7-X stellarator at Greifswald in Germany (pictured above) is set to change all that, with assembly due for completion in 2015.

There is some crossover between the two paths. Both tokamaks and stellarators are part of the European Fusion Development Agreement's research programme. And physicists working on the MAST tokamak at Culham are taking advantage of computer codes written by stellarator researchers to develop 3D plasma models. Computerised models allow scientists to match theories about plasma behaviour to real experiments. The new 3D models give a much fuller understanding of what is happening inside the plasma than the 2D versions that have been used up till now, in analysing the results of experiments where extra external magnetic coils are applied to the plasma. CCFE theoretical physicist Christopher Ham explains:

“MAST has a plasma with a ‘cored apple' shape. If you imagine slicing the apple open you can only see its condition at that one cross-section, and not in the rest of it. That is what it is like working with 2D codes. They are still essential for what we do and they have provided important insights, but now we need to look at 3D properties of the plasma too. The plasma isn't symmetrical the whole way round; it shifts and tilts in different points. Capturing these changes tells us more about how to keep plasma stable inside MAST. That's why 3D models are important.”

Luckily, it is not as difficult as you might think to transfer the complicated mathematics of stellarators to tokamaks. Once the differences in geometry have been accounted for, they translate well. Researcher Tony Cooper of Switzerland's CRPP institute has already adapted the VMEC stellarator code – which produces plasma models like the one opposite – to a number of tokamaks, including MAST.

“Stellarators are naturally 3D in nature, and codes like VMEC have been written to map this,” continues Christopher Ham. “So it makes sense to use these ready-made codes, which have been tried and tested over 30 years, for devices like MAST. Without them we'd be starting from scratch, which would be a massive effort. The expertise of our friends in stellarator research is saving us a lot of time and trouble.”

Christopher and colleagues Ian Chapman and Samuli Saarelma have taken on Tony Cooper's initial work and find it is already opening up new possibilities. One example is the study of Edge Localised Modes (ELMs), harmful instabilities that take energy out of the plasma, impeding the tokamak's performance. MAST has special magnetic coils that control ELMs by changing the magnetic field at the plasma edge. 3D modelling can show what effect the coils are having in all regions of the machine.

“Often we want to know why a particular coil configuration does what it does,” says Christopher Ham. “How does the edge of the plasma move in and out as you go around MAST? And how does this change the stability? These are questions we can only answer in 3D.”

An added benefit has been the chance to forge stronger links with the stellarator community – Christopher has been working particularly closely with counterparts in Germany and the United States.

“There is increasing interest in working together internationally,” he says. “I hope this continues – we can learn a lot from each other, and in the end fusion research will be the winner.”

Images

Top: The W 7-X stellarator under construction (courtesy IPP)

Middle: A 3D stellarator plasma model produced by the VMEC code (courtesy of VMEC Wiki/PPPL)

Bottom: An image of a MAST plasma with an ELM instability

Site open on Monday 21 January

20/01/2013 00:00:00

Staff, contractors and visitors are advised that the Culham site will be open as usual on Monday 21 January.

CCFE and UK Atomic Energy Authority operations will resume following the recent adverse weather conditions.

CCFE in partnership for ITER blanket design work

10/01/2013 00:00:00

A partnership involving CCFE has won a contract for design work on ITER's Test Blanket Modules.

Led by international engineering and project management company AMEC, the consortium is to develop designs for these crucial components, which have the role of converting neutrons from the fusion reactions inside ITER into tritium. Tritium is one of the fuels that will drive future fusion reactors, but its natural scarcity means that power stations will need to breed their own tritium fuel – around 300g per day for every 800MW of electrical power. The blanket modules on the ITER experiment will test fuel breeding concepts with a view to implementing them on the prototype fusion powerplant DEMO.

Among AMEC's other partners in the contract, which is worth up to €4 million, are Idaho National Laboratories and specialist companies including Hyde Engineering Group.

Martin Townsend, CCFE's Business Development Manager, said: “For a number of years, Europe and other ITER parties have been developing tritium breeder blanket concepts that will be tested in the form of Test Blanket Modules on the ITER device. This contract enables CCFE to support the development of the modules through the next design phase and is a key milestone in our strategy to support industry in the delivery of future fusion reactors.”

The Fusion Ambassadors - coming to a lecture theatre near you

20/12/2012 00:00:00

Members of the CCFE graduate training scheme Richard Brown and Robert Salmon have been engaging student engineers and physicists with a high-impact lecture on fusion technology.

The graduates are forming a ‘Fusion Ambassadors' network to give talks at universities around the UK, and the first two presentations have gone down very well with students.

Richard Brown (pictured right) explained the motivation behind the idea:

“It's concerned me since I graduated, that fusion isn't given coverage alongside other future energy systems in typical engineering degree courses. This is perhaps due to the perception that fusion is strictly in the realm of a physics experiment and that any practicable device is too far over the horizon to be considered relevant to graduating engineers today.

“Our presentation challenges this assumption by outlining how near-term or existing technology could be utilised to realise fusion power. I also wanted to emphasise the consistent and measurable progress that has been made in Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF) in past decades (a comparison with Moore's law being a favourite!). And with the advent of ITER and the start of design activities for the 'DEMO' demonstration fusion power plant, the coming decades will be an incredibly exciting time for a young engineer or physicist to get involved in fusion research.”

Richard had the unusual honour of going back to his old university, the University of Nottingham, to give a lecture as part of the students' Thermodynamics course.

“The talk was very well received by students and academics alike, with lots of questions,” he said. “I was encouraged by the head of the Engineering Department's interest in MCF technology and ideas on incorporating it into courses to demonstrate how common engineering principles are being applied to solve problems at the cutting edge of science and technology.”

Robert Salmon travelled to Imperial College, London, where over 120 undergraduates had signed up for the fusion talk. Imperial College is a key partner in UK fusion research and there was interest from students in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and physics.

“Having finished my degree only two years ago it was initially quite daunting to be at the other end of the lecture theatre. However, once I had started I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Judging by the number of questions at the end, the students got really engaged with the prospect and challenges of developing a fusion power plant. It was encouraging to see that many of them have been taking a keen interest in fusion already, and it certainly kept me on my toes! One of our main objectives was to highlight the graduate opportunities here at Culham as well as the fusion PhD programme, so it was great that so many registered their interest in the schemes.”

After this promising start, Richard is now challenging fellow graduates to become Ambassadors and help spread the word about fusion.

“We now have a vibrant graduate community at CCFE, having recruited eleven graduate engineers and physicists in 2012,” he said. “I'm throwing down the gauntlet to other graduates and early stage researchers at CCFE to get out there to engage and inspire not only the next generation of young engineers and physicists but also their former lecturers!”

CCFE researchers tour China’s Fusion Energy Excellence Centre

14/12/2012 00:00:00

A group of UK fusion experts, including three from CCFE, recently visited Chinese facilities to discuss collaboration opportunities, on a trip funded by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

The delegation consisted of CCFE Director Steve Cowley, Chief Technologist Tom Todd, and mechanical engineer David Hancock, together with Howard Wilson from the University of York and Kostya Trachenko from Queen Mary University of London.

During the one-week trip, the delegates visited several fusion research organisations throughout China, which are collectively known as China's Fusion Energy Excellence Centre. Amongst these were two facilities in Beijing, the China International Fusion Energy Program Execution Centre (which is the centre for Chinese work on ITER) and the China Institute of Atomic Energy.

They also travelled to the Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei – where amongst the experts they met was Professor Jiangang Li, who previously worked at CCFE on the COMPASS fusion device – and the University of Science and Technology China. The final stop on their tour was the Capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, to visit the South-Western Institute of Physics Centre for Fusion Science and the University of Sichuan.

“We all found the trip immensely stimulating on a number of technical, political and cultural levels, and very many collaborative opportunities arose in the discussions,” said Tom Todd. “These included CCFE gaining access to experimental work on China's superconducting divertor tokamak EAST, while Chinese physicists could participate in the Super X divertor work on MAST-Upgrade; a good example of the common ground between the two research programmes."

A desire to set up a student exchange programme at Masters and PhD level between CCFE and Chinese research institutes and universities was also discussed at the different organisations.

For more information on the visit see:
http://ukinchina.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=842560182

ITER contract success for Special Techniques Group

11/12/2012 00:00:00

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's Special Techniques Group (STG) has won an ITER contract with a potential value of €5.83M over the next four years to supply a broad range of diagnostic and microwave window assemblies.

Most of the windows will be cylindrical optical assemblies with two boundaries that may consist of crystal quartz, diamond, sapphire, fused silica, Schott Glass, and potentially infra-red transmitting media such as barium fluoride and strontium fluoride. With the latter materials some degree of R&D will be required to determine suitable bonding solutions.

The purpose of the “double boundary” is to ensure that effective tritium containment is maintained throughout the life cycle of such assemblies, particularly in potentially extreme operating conditions.

STG is a highly-skilled material joining facility within CCFE, with more than 40 years of experience as an integral part of the UK nuclear fusion research programme. It also offers a service to other areas of science and to industry. The award of the ITER contract was based upon design skills, technical ability and the excellent reputation of STG amongst a broad range of international clients.

“This is a hard-won contract achieved by the strenuous efforts of the entire team in STG, not only in working to maintain technical excellence in a such a specialist field, but by constantly producing imaginative solutions to the challenges with which we are regularly presented”, said Simon Hanks, Head of STG. “We are anticipating that the first task orders will appear by the end of 2012.”

More information on Special Technique Group services:
http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/special_techniques.aspx

'Promising indications' from CCFE recruitment fair

10/12/2012 00:00:00

A recruitment fair was held at Culham on 29 November to encourage engineers and scientists to find out about fusion research and consider applying to work for CCFE.

Over 100 people attended the event – some local to Oxfordshire, others who had travelled from as far afield as Paris and Liverpool. Feedback from the event was very positive with prospective staff expressing enthusiasm for the opportunity to come and work at Culham.

CCFE's Head of Operations and Programme Delivery Division, David Martin, commented: “The fair seems to have been a great success. It was very busy and there was a real buzz, fed from the enthusiasm of the CCFE staff in attendance. Confirmation will come when interviews turn into new staff, but indications look very promising.”

Areas that CCFE is looking to recruit in range from physicists, engineers (mechanical, electrical, vacuum, services and electronic), to IT staff and technicians.

If you weren't able to attend the fair but are interested in any of these opportunities please see our Careers page for more information.

Full steam ahead for MAST-Upgrade

05/12/2012 00:00:00

The first major element of the MAST-Upgrade tokamak has arrived at Culham, as the £20 million project to upgrade the UK's fusion research device gathers pace.

The new centre tube for MAST, which has been manufactured in the Netherlands by Schelde Exotech, has been delivered and prepared for acceptance testing at CCFE.

The centre tube is a column of stainless steel and Inconel that runs down the middle of the MAST vacuum vessel. It is a key component that holds the vessel's structure together and provides the reference point for the rest of the tokamak's design. Thin enough to provide the tight, spherical plasmas that physicists require, but still able to withstand the intense conditions in the heart of the vessel, it is exposed to the highest stresses of any area of the machine. A new, thicker tube is required because MAST-Upgrade will load ten times more force on it than the existing tokamak – around 5.23 meganewtons (about half the thrust of a rocket booster at lift-off).

CCFE's Dan Wolff (Lead Engineer for MAST-Upgrade's Load Assembly) said: "The arrival of the centre tube was the culmination of eleven months of hard work since the contract was awarded – coming in one month ahead of schedule, and on budget."

There has been more good news for MAST-Upgrade with the successful commissioning of the 50-tonne crane that will haul the tokamak out into the upgrade assembly area. Full commissioning of the crane has now been completed, and it has been tested to beyond its safe working load to a total weight of 62.5 tonnes.

“The controllability of the crane under load was encouraging, giving reassurance the crane, the gantry structure and the flooring are fit for purpose,” commented CCFE engineer David Sutton, who oversaw the test.

With under a year to go to the MAST-U shutdown, the pace of the project is starting to quicken. “The team are working extremely hard and doing a fantastic job,” said Project Leader Joe Milnes. “Activity levels are really speeding up, and the next year is going to fly by.”

Fusion film shortlisted for international award

26/11/2012 00:00:00

'The Forgotten Star', a short documentary on fusion, is a semi-finalist in the Focus Forward film competition.

Filmmakers Rakel Weinberg and Thom Humphreys have produced a hard-hitting film focusing on the urgent need for new energy sources and the role fusion could play in the future.

Much of the footage was filmed at Culham, particularly the EFDA-JET facilities, and there are interviews with plasma physicist Amy Shumack and Head of CCFE Steve Cowley.

The $200,000 Focus Forward competition showcases a series of three-minute stories about innovative people who are reshaping the world through act or invention. Entries were received from 69 countries and the winners will be announced at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, U.S., next January.

Rakel Weinberg told us what inspired her and Thom to make the film: "In The Forgotten Star, we set out to capture and reflect a mood of warning and a call to awareness. This three-minute edit only highlights the implications fusion may or may not have on our future. In a forthcoming longer version, we shall divulge the full spectrum of influence that energy research and its application will have on all facets of society."

You can watch the film, and vote for your favourite, at this link: http://vimeo.com/focusforwardfilms/semifinalists/51886135

CCFE donation helps children see a different and ‘faster’ world

23/11/2012 00:00:00

Pupils at Culham Parochial School can study the habitats of insects and see plants appear to grow faster following the purchase of a bug house and timelapse plant camera with CCFE financial support.

The local school has been working hard to develop a specialist outdoor area at the front of the classrooms which will give the children the opportunity to study the natural world at first hand.

Described as the ‘biggest house in the insect world’, the Insect Conservation Study Centre has five chambers where different mini beasts can live, including a magnified viewing area. The equipment is designed for pupils to be able to observe and study a whole range of insects in a natural habitat.

The CCFE donation also allowed the school to purchase a timelapse plant camera to work on their combined science and multimedia skills. The camera will allow the children to produce films of plants growing, such as a bean sprouting or a rose blooming, which will last for just 30 seconds.

“I would like to thank CCFE for their donation, which has enabled us to purchase specialist equipment for our developing outdoor learning space,” said Matthew Attree, Headteacher of Culham Parochial School. “The children are very enthusiastic about studying the natural world, and are looking forward to using the new house and camera in the spring.”

Bridging the generation gap

12/11/2012 00:00:00

Former Harwell apprentices from the 1940s to the 1990s came face to face with the young engineers of today at an event hosted by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Culham.

The renowned apprenticeship scheme at the Harwell nuclear research site ran between 1948 and 1994, training many engineers who have gone on to highly successful careers around the world, among them Formula 1 team boss Ross Brawn. Now, a new generation of young people is being trained on the Authority's re-established apprenticeship scheme at CCFE, set up in 2005.

The event brought together fifty apprentices of all ages who started their careers at Harwell. The centrepiece was the unveiling of the ‘Harwell Apprentice', a magnificent scale-model of a steam traction engine that was built by apprentices in the 1980s and has been restored to its former glory. Some of those involved in the engine's original build were present at the reunion. Also among the guests was Tony Temple, who was one of the very first group of apprentices when the Harwell scheme started in 1948 (pictured above with CCFE apprentice Joe Voller).

Richard Smith and Dick Francis, both graduates of the 1962 intake of apprentices, organised the event and plan to use it as the starting point for re-vitalising the Harwell Apprentice Association to connect up to 1,400 ex-apprentices.

Richard explained: “A Harwell apprenticeship has given a good start to many a working life, and a large number of apprentices have risen to importance in different fields. We thought it was a pity that there was no way of making contact with others who had been on the scheme, to organise reunions or just catch up on news. We have already tracked down nearly 300 ex-apprentices and hope this event will help our network take off.”

As well as catching up on old times with past colleagues, the ex-apprentices met the engineers now receiving training at the Culham site. Dominic Callaghan, Lydia Feasey, Ross McKean, Joe Voller and Martyn Walsh were on hand to talk about their experiences and hopes for the future. They also showed the ex-apprentices the cutting-edge fusion energy research at Culham, with a guided tour of the Joint European Torus (JET), the world's largest fusion experiment, which is hosted at the site.

Head of CCFE's Apprentice Training Group Steve Hall said: “It was fantastic to see the ex-apprentices swapping stories with the trainees from Culham. The common experience meant there was a real bond between the young and the old. Our guests talked about the career opportunities their apprenticeship had given them and you could see their enthusiasm as they walked around the site – the passion for engineering never fades.”

Richard Smith added:

“Apprenticeships are more important than ever today. Thankfully they are back in vogue as the government and employers realise the need for engineering skills to help get the economy moving. We enjoyed meeting the new crop of apprentices and seeing how the training has changed since our day.”

When Saint Bob met the patron saint of fusion

09/11/2012 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley was among the speakers at the THiNK 2012 ‘ideas festival' in India this month, in a line-up that also featured Sir Bob Geldof.

The event in Goa brought together leading thinkers from across the globe in a variety of disciplines including politics, technology, business, media and the arts, in a format similar to the well-known TED conferences.

Rock star Geldof – often dubbed ‘Saint Bob' for his involvement in charity work, most notably Live Aid – was there to perform with his band and to talk about his campaign to fight poverty. The 60 speakers spanned a cross-section of Indian cultural and academic life, with other faces more familiar in the UK such as Marcus du Sautoy and George Galloway. Professor Cowley's talk on fusion was part of a series entitled ‘Modern Druids: Seed Ideas for a New World' – and the conference programme wryly notes: “if fusion is the holy grail of energy, Steve Cowley is its patron saint”.

Professor Cowley commented: “The conference was a fantastic mix of ideas, performances, arguments and excellent Indian food. I was pleased that after my talk many people were keen to speak to me about fusion and what it would mean for the world.”

Photo: Professor Cowley addressing the THiNK 2012 event. Courtesy of Thinkworks Pvt Ltd.

More information at: http://thinkworks.in/.

Celebration time for CCFE apprentices

05/11/2012 00:00:00

Three more apprentices rolled off the CCFE production line at a graduation ceremony last month. Young engineers Kieran Flinders, Ross McKean and Tom West marked the completion of their four-year training programme at Culham.

Guest of Honour at the event was Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Dr Paul Golby, and the presentations of the apprentices’ awards were made by the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Chairman Professor Roger Cashmore.

Having received their awards, the three graduating apprentices endured the nerve-wracking ordeal of giving speeches to the audience, recounting their experiences throughout the training scheme.

During their four years at CCFE, the apprentices undertake ten placements with the final 18 months being spent in a department which is best suited to the candidates’ skills and the business needs of CCFE. And the scheme is clearly a success – from recent cohorts of apprentice graduates, 15 are currently working at Culham.

CCFE Apprentice Training Manager Steve Hall congratulated the three graduates:

“The high level skills which Kieran, Ross and Tom bring to CCFE make them a credit to the organisation. They have taken full advantage of the high quality of training and mentoring that they have received from Culham staff.

“The standard of all our apprentices is extremely high: this is regularly demonstrated in the work they produce, and by their representation in national awards which they have been shortlisted for and won,” he added.

If you would like to find out more about apprenticeships at Culham, visit the scheme's website at: www.culhamapprenticeshipscheme.com.

Photos:

Top right – the three graduate apprentices

Middle right – Ross McKean with Dr Paul Golby of EPSRC

Bottom left – Tom West with CCFE's Phil Prior and Professor Roger Cashmore

Bottom right – Kieran Flinders with CCFE's Phil Prior and Professor Roger Cashmore

Culham event helps put UK business on track for ITER

31/10/2012 00:00:00

Over 100 delegates from a wide range of industries came to Culham Centre for Fusion Energy for the "Business Opportunities for UK plc from Fusion & ITER" event to hear how they can benefit from the ITER project.

The day was an ideal occasion for networking, finding out more about the procurement process for the €14 billion project, and speaking to representatives of ITER, Fusion For Energy (F4E – the agency for European ITER contracts), UK Trade & Investment and CCFE.

The event was opened by Sir David King (Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and former UK Government Chief Scientist). Other speakers included: Françoise Flament, Head of Procurement and Contract Division, ITER Organization; Fabrizio Bertora and Anthony Courtial – Business Intelligence Group, F4E; and Martin Cox – Operations Director at CCFE. These presentations were followed up by useful updates on technical areas including buildings and power supplies, neutral beam and electron cyclotron power sources, cryoplant and fuel cycle, and remote handling.

The ‘Meet the Buyer’ session in the afternoon (shown right) gave company representatives the chance to speak one-to-one with ITER, F4E and CCFE contracts staff, and ran alongside seminars and tours of the European JET fusion device at Culham.

Also attending were UK Trade & Investment, who outlined how they can help SMEs develop export opportunities in nuclear and other sectors.

Dan Mistry, Fusion & Industry Manager at Culham, said: “The event provided a great opportunity for industry to meetkey engineers, procurement staff and also meet other companies who have either secured work or are keen to be involved in this prestigious programme. So my message to UK companies is ‘wake up or you'll miss these business opportunities.’ ”

What the delegates said:

Sian Beaty, PAR Systems:

“A very useful event. PAR Systems are bidding for ITER contracts in remote handling and I’ve already got more out of the day than I expected, on how the procurement process is developed and the plans for forthcoming procurement. The opportunities for networking are beneficial as well. I hope they organise it again.”

Martin Hodges, Teledyne Reynolds:

“My company is already starting to work with CCFE on the supply of cables and is keen to provide more equipment to JET and MAST. We see this as a way of getting our foot in the door for ITER too. The Meet the Buyer session is particularly helpful in clarifying procurement issues that we’re not sure about. I’ve found it an impressive event with clear information about the status of ITER. I can now see the nuts and bolts of the project, how it all fits together and what is on offer.”

Jon Allday, Morson Projects:

“We’re interested in contracts either as part of a team or in bidding direct over the next few years, in front-end design, design support and documentation. Today we’re hoping to see examples of UK companies who’ve already won business on ITER. We’re also looking for opportunities to join forces and bid for ITER work. It’s always useful to get an update and to network. And it’s a good chance to understand from F4E in person what the procurement requirements are.”

Fusion’s wizard of Oz keen on MAST-Upgrade link-up

31/10/2012 00:00:00

Leading Australian fusion scientist Dr Matthew Hole says a surge of interest in fusion Down Under could lead to more collaboration in CCFE's MAST-Upgrade project and involvement in ITER.

Formerly based at Culham, Matthew stays in close touch with the UK fusion programme in his present role as a fellow at the Plasma Research Laboratory of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Since moving back to Australia he has maintained strong contacts with CCFE and normally spends three to four weeks here every year working with physicists on topics of mutual interest. He came to Culham earlier this month to catch up with research colleagues, and took the opportunity to give a presentation on his latest work.

A frequent contributor to the MAST research programme in the fields of fast particle physics and MHD (magnetohydrodynamics), he is looking forward to the forthcoming major upgrade of MAST and the new openings it presents for international collaborations.

“We're keen to get involved with MAST-Upgrade and maintain a strong footprint with CCFE,” Matthew comments. “Already we're looking at ways we can contribute, for example in the design of a magnetic fluctuation diagnostic for measuring plasma waves, and in the provision of integrated modelling. For example, we co-designed the high frequency magnetics array in MAST.”

Australia's experimental fusion programme centres on the H-1 NF stellarator in Canberra, but there is a great deal of tokamak-based research too. Many of ANU's fusion projects are partnerships with other labs around the world. Apart from CCFE they also work with PPPL in the US, IPP in Germany, K-STAR in Korea and RFX in Italy. And there is much enthusiasm for greater participation from Australia in the ITER project, as Matthew Hole explained during a visit to Cadarache last month. He chairs the Australian ITER Forum, which he and other physicists set up in a bid to increase their contribution to the crucial next-step international tokamak.

“Fusion in Australia is on the up, with a lot of students getting involved in the programme. We want to capitalise on this by playing a bigger role in ITER,” explains Matthew. “We aren't looking to become a full partner as this isn't a realistic prospect given the size of our programme. But we can certainly help in areas like diagnostics, plasma modelling and studies of burning plasmas. Materials and plasma-surface interactions are another big focus for us, bigger than plasma science itself in fact, and that's somewhere we can help develop the DEMO powerplant that will follow ITER.”

With the final MAST campaign before the upgrade (Campaign M9) due to start early in 2013, Matthew plans to be back in the UK before long.

“The data we get from MAST is extremely helpful in feeding into our studies in Canberra, but I'm hoping to come over to take part in the M9 experiments,” he says. “Nothing beats ‘hands-on' involvement here in the MAST Control Room.”

Photograph: Matthew Hole (second from right) is pictured at Culham with CCFE collaborators Ken McClements, Lynton Appel and Jakob Svensson.

JET on BBC4 'Seven Ages of Starlight'

25/10/2012 00:00:00

JET features in a major BBC TV documentary that tells the epic story of the stars.'Seven Ages of Starlight' is screened in the UK at 9pm tonight (Thursday 25 October) on BBC4. In the film, leading astronomers reveal how the grandest drama on tonight is the one playing above our heads – and how discovering their tale has transformed our own understanding of the universe. Fusion scientists explain the idea of recreating stars on earth in machines like JET in a quest for a new source of abundant energy. The programme will be available to view online afterwards – for more information and preview clips see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00yb434.

Last week, another BBC4 show, 'Order and Disorder', also included footage from JET. Presented by Jim Al-Khalili, this was the first in a two-part guide to entropy and the rules that link together everything from engines to humans to stars. Jim investigates how energy, so critical to daily existence, actually helps us make sense of the entire universe. He talks to JET research scientist Morten Lennholm about fusion, as an example of how large amounts of energy can be unlocked from small amounts of material. Find out more and watch the episode at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ynyl9.

Bringing it all together for DEMO

12/10/2012 00:00:00

CCFE experts have carried out the first ever integrated assessment of the life expectancy of materials in a full-scale fusion power plant design.

The study focused on the effects caused by the build-up of helium in fusion materials. When neutrons from fusion reactions hit the materials in reactor components, they trigger nuclear reactions that cause transmutation – the changing of elements to form new ones. Helium is one of the gases produced by such reactions. The accumulation of helium causes swelling and embrittlement of materials – leading to fracture – and is one of the factors expected to limit the lifetime of components in a fusion power plant.

Materials modellers Mark Gilbert and Sergei Dudarev, working with CCFE specialists in nuclear data and neutron transport (Lee Packer, Jean-Christophe Sublet, and Shanliang Zheng) have conducted a pioneering study in which a fusion power plant design was explored and assessed using an integrated computational model that gives a detailed prediction of the lifetime of components under helium embrittlement. The results will help guide the choice of materials for the design of DEMO, the prototype power plant that will follow the ITER experiment.

“We found wide variations between the behaviour of different materials,” said Mark Gilbert. “The good news is that tungsten (the likely material for the ‘divertor' plasma exhaust system in DEMO as well as ITER) shows low susceptibility to helium accumulation and embrittlement. However, in the iron of steels, for example, there is higher helium production in components bearing the brunt of neutrons from fusion reactions. The study highlights the need to develop materials with special microstructure, such as oxide dispersion strengthened steels that can resist the effects of helium accumulation without becoming brittle.

“We think the integrated approach we have adopted has worked well, and it will now help advance the EFDA materials programme as a result.”

The results of the work are published in Nuclear Fusion 52 (2012) 083019.

Images

Top: Artist's impression based on European fusion power plant design

Bottom: Toroidal cross-section of DEMO model taken from the CCFE materials study

York Plasma Institute open for business

05/10/2012 00:00:00

UK fusion R&D has received a major boost with the opening of a world-class inter-disciplinary plasma research centre at the University of York.

The York Plasma Institute, the result of a £6m collaboration between the University and the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), was formally opened by the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Sir John Beddington, on 1 October.

The institute will cover magnetic and inertial confinement fusion, as well as technological and medical applications of low temperature plasmas. Its focus will be on fundamental plasma science and related technology, collaborating with industries and universities, and fostering start-up companies. Purpose-built laboratories on the York campus will provide excellent facilities for this work.

CCFE has strong research links with University of York physicists, who are closely involved in the MAST programme and have a remote control room allowing them to participate in experiments at Culham. Several CCFE staff attended the opening ceremony, with Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley giving one of the keynote speeches.

Guests at the event toured the institute, including the laboratories, where a linear plasma machine on which a diagnostic built by Durham University is about to be tested before being implemented on MAST. The visitors were also able to experience CCFE's education outreach activity, the Sun Dome, which is often lent to the University of York for presentations by its students to local primary schools. Another highlight was a stunning 360 degree projection recreating a plasma pulse inside the JET tokamak, produced by CCFE's reprographics team Culham Publication Services.

Head of CCFE Steve Cowley welcomed the new research centre and the opportunities for collaboration that it brings. He said: "The York Plasma Institute provides a huge opportunity for increased CCFE university interaction. I'm very enthusiastic about the faculty and students at York working in fusion and working with Culham."

Photo details

Top: Holding a commemorative plaque for the York Plasma Institute are Brian Cantor (Vice-Chancellor of the University of York), John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific Advisor), Howard Wilson (Director of the York Plasma Institute) and David Delpy (Chief Executive of EPSRC).

Bottom: John Beddington touring the laboratory facilities.

Photographs courtesy of Ian Martindale.

CCFE Annual Report 2011/12

28/09/2012 00:00:00

CCFE has published its Annual Report for the 2011/12 financial year.

Highlights of the year included:

The successful restart of the JET experiment, which CCFE operates on behalf of the European Fusion Development Agreement, after extensive machine enhancements and the installation of the 'ITER-like' plasma-facing wall;
The most productive MAST physics campaign to date, which has resulted in ground-breaking work, for example on instabilities at the edge of fusion plasmas (Edge Localised Modes);
An expansion of CCFE's fusion technology programme, with international acclaim for studies of key systems for the ‘DEMO' prototype power plant;
Good progress with CCFE's work for ITER, such as the design of the ICRH plasma heating antenna;
Preparations for the major upgrade to the MAST tokamak, which will start in 2013 – all major contracts have been placed and design and manufacture of components is well underway.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of CCFE, in his introduction to the report, paid tribute to the efforts of staff during the year:

“Getting JET ready for our European partners after the biggest upgrade in its recent history was no easy task. We did it; and the first plasma was a spectacular success. The results now being achieved at JET are giving us increased confidence that ITER will meet or even surpass our expectations.

“The inventiveness of our staff and collaborators in developing diagnostics to ‘see' inside the plasma continues to amaze me. And our exciting plans in fusion technology are starting to bear fruit – both in power plant design studies, and in new experimental facilities on the Culham site.

“Every day, at CCFE and other labs around the world, fusion scientists and engineers are doing extraordinary things. It is the efforts of these dedicated people that will bring one of the grand scientific challenges of our age to a successful conclusion.”

The CCFE Annual Report 2011/12 summary brochure, plus the main report with the full technical chapters, can be found at:
http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/annual_reports.aspx

MAST update - Autumn 2012

26/09/2012 00:00:00

Preparatory work for MAST-Upgrade is now being carried out in the MAST complex, including the trial installation of a new 50T crane and neutron shielding modifications.

Alongside this, work will soon get underway to get MAST ready for its next set of experiments. The final MAST physics campaign before the Upgrade is expected to run from March to the summer of 2013. A Call for Proposals for the M9 campaign has been issued.

Improvements to the Neutral Beam Injection heating system are being made in time for Campaign M9. In addition, new 28GHz microwave components are being designed and manufactured at both Oak Ridge National Laboratory and CCFE in order to improve the performance of the transmission line for M9.

Publications

In recent months efforts have also been focused on analysing data from the last MAST experimental campaign, the most successful to date, resulting in a number of high profile scientific papers either published or in the pipeline.

Papers published recently address important topics such as:

Control of Edge Localised Modes (Andrew Kirk et. al.);
Mitigation of plasma disruptions (Andrew Thornton et. al.);
Turbulence measurements and theory (Young-chul Ghim et. al.);
Improved understanding of Neo-classical Tearing Modes (Jack Snape et. al.);
Unique measurements to characterise the plasma exhaust – simultaneous measurement of ion temperatures in the plasma mid-plane and at the divertor (Sarah Elmore et. al.).

All of these studies were carried out in collaboration with UK universities and have increased CCFE's understanding of physical processes which will have an important influence on plasma performance in future devices, such as ITER and spherical tokamaks including MAST-Upgrade.

Young CCFE engineers making their mark

24/09/2012 00:00:00

Two Culham apprentices have won national recognition for the excellence of their work.

Third-year CCFE apprentice Lydia Feasey has been shortlisted for the Institute of Engineering and Technology's ‘Young Woman Engineer of the Year' award. Lydia was asked to attend the IET at Savoy Place, London, where she met the other seven finalists. They each had to provide a ten-minute presentation to a panel of judges on their roles within their company. The finalists also had to undergo two stringent interviews on the day. Lydia will be keeping her fingers crossed at the awards ceremony in London on 6 December, where she will have her photo taken with TV presenter Gabby Logan and receive a certificate for being shortlisted for this award.

Ross McKean, a fourth-year apprentice, recently won a prestigious Whitworth Scholarship Award. It is open to all undergraduates pursuing degree-level courses of any engineering discipline. Ross's prize is £2,500 per year towards his studies for the remainder of his degree course.

Steve Hall, Head of CCFE's Apprentice Training Group, said: “The calibre of the CCFE apprenticeship scheme and its apprentices has again been recognised with two awards this year. The IET award that Lydia Feasey has been shortlisted for honours the very best female engineers under the age of 30 working in the UK today. In addition, Ross McKean's Whitworth Scholarship is given to outstanding engineers who have excellent academic and practical skills.

“The apprentices make a fantastic contribution to CCFE. Our staff love having them around and passing on knowledge to help them develop their careers.”

Meanwhile, Tom West, winner of the 2011 Oxeta Apprentice of the Year Award, was invited to a Jubilee lunch at Westminster Hall attended by the Queen and many other dignatories. Tom was guest of the Worshipful Company of Founders, who sponsor the annual Oxeta apprenticeship awards. Tom said: “It was a fantastic and memorable experience, a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'd like to thank Oxeta and the Worshipful Company of Founders for the invitation.”

CCFE's apprenticeship scheme trains young engineering technicians in a four-year programme based at Culham and at a local college. The scheme is designed to develop both technical and academic abilities and personal qualities. Completing the programme results in a certificate of Advanced Apprenticeship, a complementary academic qualification, registration as an EngTech by either Institution of Mechanical Engineers or the Institution of Engineering and Technology – and a head start for a future career. For more information, go to: http://www.culhamapprenticeshipscheme.com

Materials world benefits from UK collaboration

18/09/2012 00:00:00

A link-up between CCFE and AWE Aldermaston is improving predictions of the lifetime of materials in future fusion devices.

Scientists from Culham are using AWE's ASP accelerator to study the effect of fast neutrons on a range of candidate materials. The results will add valuable data which can be used to benefit the design of tokamaks including the next-step ITER experiment and the DEMO prototype powerplant.

The neutrons that emerge from fusion reactions are essential as they contain the energy that will be turned into electricity, but their high-speed onslaught on the surrounding structures causes damage and activation over time – leaving materials researchers with a headache.

Testing samples of suitable elements and materials is therefore a high priority. ASP is the UK's primary high-energy neutron source and is one of the few worldwide that can produce the 14 MeV neutrons produced in deuterium-tritium fusion reactions, reactions that will also occur within the plasma of a fusion power plant.

With no such facility at Culham, and with Aldermaston only 30 miles away, booking machine time on ASP makes sense, according to Lee Packer of CCFE's Applied Radiation Physics Group, who was involved in setting up the link with AWE.

“We need to be able to make accurate predictions of neutron interactions with materials that will be used in a fusion device,” he explains. “ASP produces neutrons at the right energy for fusion studies. It means that we can validate the data used to support our calculations in important areas, such as activation of materials. Previously we've built up an extremely detailed set of theoretical predictions to cover many types of nuclear reaction, but there's no substitute for real experimental data to underpin such predictions.”

The ASP accelerator is used for a range of industrial purposes including the calibration of neutron detectors and studies into the vulnerability of electronic components or systems. It speeds up deuterium nuclei to energies of 135 kV, which fly onto a titanium target loaded with tritium. This produces 14 MeV neutrons moving at around 50,000 km per second. The neutrons in turn are fired at a foil slightly smaller than a 1 pence piece, made of the candidate material (see image opposite). The gamma emissions from the resulting reactions can be measured to see how the composition of the material changes. Researchers can see which isotopes have been emitted, enabling them to calculate the ‘cross-sections' or likelihood of certain types of reactions occurring in tokamaks.

“This gives us a ‘fingerprint' for different types of nuclear reaction,” explains Lee Packer. “Already we've measured several reactions across 17 elements – but this is only a small fraction of the data that needs to be validated, so there's a lot of work still to do.”

Fusion materials of particular interest in the ASP tests are tungsten – used in the ‘divertor' region where plasma contacts the tokamak's wall – and iron and chromium, part of the steel structures that will surround the fusion chamber in powerplants. These, and many other elements are being studied to support the European Activation System (EASY) – one of the world's most extensive libraries of nuclear reactions, maintained by CCFE – with applications beyond fusion, for example in the fission industry.

CCFE has now been utilising ASP for two years, and fusion researchers hope to extend it to investigate other areas in future, such as predictions for the amount of tritium fuel produced when neutrons interact with the lithium blanket around the tokamak.

The partnership is timely as CCFE has formed a consortium with six other European fusion research associations to pool resources and improve the quality of data related to nuclear analysis. Joining the consortium allows CCFE to bid for experimental neutronics work related to ITER – both in the development of diagnostic systems to measure neutrons in test blanket modules, and to ensure that these diagnostics are equipped to resist irradiation damage.

And CCFE itself, with the University of York, has recently set up a lab on-site at Culham to supplement the ASP tests by studying the response of materials following irradiation over a longer period of time.

“Together these developments mean that CCFE can build an experimental capability in neutronics to underpin our strong theoretical, modelling and technology programme areas,” concludes Lee Packer. “As we look towards commercial fusion, materials will become even more of a hot topic, so the work we're doing now will bear fruit in more robust designs for the tokamaks of the future.”

Photo: CCFE materials scientists with European colleagues with staff at AWE. © British Crown Owned Copyright [2012]/AWE

FameLab winner impressed by 'cool' JET

13/09/2012 00:00:00

Dr Andrew Steele, the UK winner of FameLab 2012, recently visited CCFE for a guided tour of the fusion facilities by CEO Professor Steve Cowley.

FameLab is an international competition originally set up by Cheltenham Science Festival to find top new science communicators. Each year hundreds of scientists, engineers and mathematicians compete to make it to the FameLab UK Grand Final hosted by Quentin Cooper, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Material World. The winner then goes on to compete with contestants from around the world for the ultimate title of International FameLab Champion.

To win the competition, Andrew – a physicist and science communicator from the University of Oxford – had just three minutes to pitch a complex scientific idea to a panel of experts. The judges included British neuroscientist Professor Russell Foster, Andrew Cohen (head of the BBC's science unit), and anatomist, science writer and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts. Andrew impressed the panel and captivated the audience with his pitch on quantum mechanics and how it can help us to understand the world around us, right down to the colour of carrots.

Andrew told us:

'JET is really cool place to visit. I love the massive engineering at physics facilities, and I especially enjoyed seeing the huge articulated robot arm used for maintenance inside the torus. Brilliant!

'I'm currently researching science funding (or rather the lack of it) and fusion is a classic area where investment is totally insignificant when compared to the magnitude of the problem we're trying to solve: we spend around £2,000 per person per year on energy in the UK, and less than £1 per person per year researching fusion. It's bizarre, and I hope we can convince people that we need to invest more in science.'

ITER business opportunities event - 11 October

31/08/2012 00:00:00

"Business Opportunities for UK plc from Fusion & ITER" is jointly organised by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Central England Branch of the Nuclear Institute.

The objective of the event is for British companies to understand the procurement process and contracts that are arising from the construction of the next-generation international fusion experiment ITER at Cadarache, France. ITER will take ten years to build and will require both conventional and specialist engineering expertise. Europe’s domestic agency for ITER procurement, Fusion for Energy (F4E), has over 800 million Euros to commit this calendar year and several billions over the coming years.

At the event there will be speakers from both F4E and the central ITER Organisation in France, and also from the UK Atomic Energy Authority to cover procurement opportunities at Culham.

For more information, including the programme and how to register, please see: www.fusioniteropportunities.org.uk.

Culham remote handling expertise pays off for ITER

17/08/2012 00:00:00

Engineers at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy have completed conceptual designs for ITER's Neutral Beam Cell remote handling system.

The ITER Neutral Beam Cell will contain three beams to provide up to 50MW of heating power into the tokamak's plasma. In addition it contains one diagnostic neutral beam and four diagnostic ports. All these components will be in the line of sight of the plasma and will become irradiated by high energy neutrons, preventing manual access to maintain them.

The project, carried out by the Remote Handling Unit at Culham, involved the design of a range of systems that will allow all maintenance operations to be performed within this environment without the need for manual intervention.

These include a ‘man in the loop' remote-controlled manipulator inspired by the model the Unit currently use to work inside JET, a monorail crane, vessel opening systems, and remote equipment for the beam source, upper port and neutron shield.

In addition to the design work, CCFE produced around 200 supporting reports, covering varied requirements such as virtual reality simulations, analysis of the crane's performance under extreme seismic events, and recovery procedures covering all potential failures.

The plans have met with a positive response from the ITER-appointed independent panel that assessed them. Dr Spencer Pitcher, the panel's chairman, commented on the quality, the level detail and quantity of CCFE's designs.

The Remote Handling Unit's work was assisted by the expertise and close co-operation of the ITER neutral beam project groups, meaning many interfaces could be rapidly collaboratively designed.

The next stage of the project will be a procurement arrangement managed by F4E (the European domestic agency for ITER) and open to competitive tender from industry.

Video of part of the remote handling conceptual design for ITER Neutral Beam Cell

MAST scientific programme - Call for participation

06/08/2012 00:00:00

CCFE invites interested scientists to make proposals for participation in the MAST scientific programme.

Proposals, in particular for experiments in the upcoming physics campaign (M9), should be submitted electronically by 31 October 2012 (see below), but participation in the theoretical exploitation is also welcome. Proponents are urged to discuss their ideas early on with the relevant CCFE Programme Leader (details below). For this, it would be helpful if proponents could express their interest in a short sentence by the end of August 2012 or as soon as possible. Proposals accepted for the previous campaign that did not get executed need to be resubmitted. Proposals under the umbrella of the ITPA or EFDA also need to be submitted.

To focus the MAST physics campaign, the following six high-level goals have been identified for the M9 campaign:

ELM control with 3D magnetic perturbations;
Evolution and stability of the edge pedestal;
Role of ion-scale turbulence in core transport;
Development of integrated scenarios for the MAST upgrade;
Development and benchmarking of edge modelling tools in benefit of the divertor upgrade;
Fast-ion transport to guide profile and heating optimisations.

Proposals contributing to one or more of these areas are in particular welcome, although other proposals including from the wider plasma physics community may also be considered. All proposals will be prioritised according to their scientific merit for the different CCFE programme areas (below). Furthermore, proposals addressing R&D needs for MAST-Upgrade will have special attention.

The main new capabilities of MAST to support these key areas are:

High neutral beam power (> 4 MW) with the two sources having different fractions of the beam energy components;
Capability to rotate the 3D magnetic configuration from the 6 upper and 12 lower in-vessel coils for ELM control.

Later in the campaign the following diagnostics currently under development may also be available:

Coherence imaging diagnostic for divertor flow measurements;
Proton detector for fast ion studies.

Schedule

Call for proposals:	3 August 2012
Electronic submission:	31 October 2012
Draft campaign schedule:	November 2012
Physics campaign:	6 months between February – September 2013

During the campaign there will be a two to three week period dedicated to EBW start-up studies with only one beam source available. Furthermore, in the middle of the run period it is planned to commission at least one of the beam sources up-to their full capability of 2.5 MW.

Organisation

The MAST scientific programme is coordinated by the leaders of five programme areas within the Tokamak Science programme. The Programme Leader or a designated contact person is happy to help with the development of the proposal and proponents are strongly encouraged to contact the Programme Leaders as early as possible.

The programme areas with their contact persons are:

Programme area	Contact person	ID
Integrated Plasma Scenarios	Clive Challis Michele Romanelli	IPS
Stability	Ian Chapman Samuli Saarelma	MHD
Transport and Confinement	Martin Valovic	T&C
Fast Particles	Ken McClements Sergei Sahrapov	FPP
SOL and Divertor	Andrew Kirk Geoff Fishpool	DIV

They can be contacted via proposals@mast.ccfe.ac.uk with the programme area ID at the beginning of the subject line.

Proposals should be submitted electronically at: https://mastweb.fusion.org.uk/fusionwiki/index.php/M9:Proposals

For this basic computer access to the CCFE computer system is needed (even with an existing JET account). To get computer access, please complete the form at: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/MAST_Registration.aspx

Information about the Tokamak Science Programme in particular the high priority research topics in each area can be found at: https://mastweb.fusion.org.uk/fusionwiki/index.php/Tokamak_Science_Programme

MAST capabilities and diagnostics

Detailed information about the MAST plant, diagnostics and operation can be accessed on the MAST fusion wiki (IT access required): https://mastweb.fusion.org.uk/fusionwiki/index.php

Without IT access some information such as annual reports, publication lists and selected technical reports are provided via the external web page: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/MAST.aspx

The currently achieved MAST parameters are:

Parameter	Value
Major radius (geometric)	0.85 m
Minor radius	0.65 m
Plasma current	< 1.45 MA
Toroidal field at R=0.7m	0.3 T – 0.6 T
Auxiliary heating power (NBI)	< 4.4 MW (70 kV)
Pulse length	< 0.6s
Elongation	2.6 (typical 2)
Triangularity	0.5
Normalised b	3-5

MAST has a unique flexible set of internal coils above and below the mid-plane for magnetic perturbation experiments. The 12 lower and six upper coils can create n=2, 3 , 4, and 6 perturbations. These coils can also be used as TAE antennas with frequencies up-to 500 kHz.

MAST is equipped with a comprehensive set of diagnostics, in particular with respect to profile diagnostics for T_e, n_e, T_i, v_i and q measuring typically every 4-5ms with about 1-2cm special resolution. Furthermore, the 8 laser, 130+16 channel Thomson Scattering for T_e and n_e measurement has intelligent event triggering. This can be used to resolve fast events with a burst of 8 laser pulses at arbitrary timing. Recently commissioned diagnostics are:

2D 8x4 channel BES for density fluctuations with a scanning optic (k_^r_I £ 1).
3D 8 channel synthetic imaging EBW radiometer with optional active probing for flow measurements.
Active edge Doppler spectroscopy for: a) 20 channel, f <50 kHz Er profile measurements (DR > 3mm); b) 120 channel, f ~ 0.25 kHz edge T_I, v_i and/or E_r profile measurement on modulated D₂ puff (500 Hz).
4 channel scanning neutron camera to measure the neutron emission profile.
24 channel 3 kHz fast ion D_a emission diagnostic (FIDA) with a choice of 5x32 active or passive viewing channels to measure emission from mainly trapped or mainly passing fast ions.
Mid-plane and Divertor retarding field energy analysers (RFEA).

Promising initial campaign for refitted JET

31/07/2012 00:00:00

Europe's premier fusion experiment, JET, has finished its first campaign since a €60 million upgrade to test key aspects of the next-step international ITER device. Initial results are encouraging and bode well for the future of fusion energy development and ITER in particular.

Operated by CCFE at Culham for researchers from around Europe under the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), JET is the largest magnetic fusion facility operating in the world today and has a crucial role in ITER preparations. Since August 2011, 286 scientists from 20 fusion research associations have been running experiments to see how the plasma-facing materials in JET's new ‘ITER-like' wall interact with the extremely hot plasma inside the machine. Early indications have confirmed the materials mix of beryllium and tungsten is working well and will be suitable for use in the much larger and more powerful ITER device.

Plasma performance with the new wall has been very consistent and successful advances have been made in optimising the so-called ‘hybrid' mode of operation – exhibiting high plasma confinement without some of the side effects of previous high performance regimes. In addition, fuel retention in the wall materials is significantly reduced (by more than a factor of ten) compared to operation with the previous carbon wall. This was one of the main motivations for this whole project and is good news for ITER preparation.

ITER's Director General, Osamu Motojima, praised the work being done at JET during a visit there earlier this month. 'It's encouraging to see the results from the ITER-Like Wall that have been achieved in such a short space of time. ITER is dependent on the success of JET.'

Another aspect of the recent refit was a boost to the Neutral Beam Injection system – one of the main methods of heating the plasma to upwards of 100 million degrees Celsius. The campaign saw record neutral beam heating power provided into the JET plasma; at one point reaching 26 megawatts. The extra power has enabled researchers to push JET's performance and get the most out of the systems installed during the upgrade.

Tim Jones, CCFE's Senior Manager for the JET Operations Contract, said: 'There has been a real buzz about how JET has been performing in the recent experiments, producing many new exciting results which are very encouraging for ITER. The next stage is to remove some samples of the plasma-facing components from the wall and see in more detail how the materials have behaved during the tests.'

It is for this purpose that JET has entered a shutdown period, during which CCFE remote handling engineers will remove sample wall tiles for analysis. Meanwhile, EFDA has already begun planning for the next experiments to be carried out when JET is back online in 2013.

First beam for new heating test bed

26/07/2012 00:00:00

A new CCFE test facility will boost European development of heating systems for fusion powerplants.

The Small Negative Ion Facility (SNIF) started operation in June and provides a valuable resource to study techniques for neutral beam injection, one of the main heating methods used in tokamaks.

Neutral beam injection works by firing high-speed neutral atoms into the plasma within the tokamak. The beam atoms interact with the nuclei in the plasma, transferring their energy by collisions. This enables the plasma to reach the extremely high temperatures needed for nuclear fusion to take place.

Fusion machines like JET and MAST use neutral beam systems with positive ions that are accelerated and neutralised before entering the plasma. These provide large amounts of power, but much of this is wasted in the neutralising process. At the higher voltages required on future machines, such as the next-step international experiment ITER and the DEMO powerplant that will follow it, this loss of power would be much greater, preventing efficient plasma heating. These machines will reduce this problem by using negative ions instead, which are neutralised more efficiently – as losing electrons is easier than gaining them. SNIF's main role is to look at ways of improving techniques for negative ion beam systems beyond ITER.

Although a small-scale test bed, SNIF is able to simulate the neutral beam injection process used in tokamaks. A relatively cold plasma (10,000 degrees C) is formed to produce negative hydrogen ions; a beam of ions is then directed through a set of accelerating grids to speed the particles up. Instead of being neutralised and sent into a tokamak, the ion beam hits a copper target plate with diagnostic sensors which allow physicists at SNIF to analyse the shape and profile of the beam. These results can then be scaled up to predict performance on the large high-power tokamaks of the future.

One key area SNIF will look at is materials for ion sources on post-ITER machines. A coating on the walls of the source reacts with incoming ions and atoms, giving up electrons to produce negative ions to flow into the heating beam. ITER will use caesium as an ion source material, but for fusion powerplants other candidates that can produce beams without the problems the highly reactive caesium poses are being considered. SNIF will test alternative materials such as boron-doped diamond samples.

Built at a low cost, mainly out of spare parts from previous systems, SNIF can also be switched to act as a positive ion system, giving the flexibility to research other areas of neutral beam development and materials testing.

Jamie Zacks, a Lead Physicist on SNIF, said: “For the first time in fifteen years CCFE now has its own negative ion test bed, instead of borrowing facilities from other labs. This, combined with its size, gives us much more control and flexibility over experiments and allows us to open up new collaborations with partners. So far SNIF is performing very well but there is much development still to do.”

Elizabeth Surrey, CCFE's Technology Programme Leader, added: “SNIF is going to make major contributions to European powerplant studies under the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) but also to CCFE's own technology projects. The technology programme at Culham is starting to take off and SNIF is visible evidence of that.”

Video of SNIF plasma and beam

CCFE's gold standard for safety

19/07/2012 00:00:00

CCFE has had its approach to the prevention of accidents and ill health recognised in the 2012 Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Occupational Health and Safety Awards.

In achieving a Gold Award, CCFE has attained the highest possible standard. Safety representatives from Culham will be presented with the award at a formal dinner in Glasgow in September.

Dating back to 1956, the RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards scheme is the largest and longest-running programme of its kind in the UK. It recognises commitment to accident and ill health prevention and is open to businesses and organisations of all types and sizes from across the UK and overseas. The scheme does not just look at accident records, but also entrants' overarching health and safety management systems, including important practices such as strong leadership and workforce involvement.

Head of CCFE's Assurance Division Colin Shimell was delighted with the award. “This award is a very well regarded, external recognition of our safety standards," he said. "Congratulations to the CCFE safety team for their successful submission to RoSPA; but the standards they were able to point to depend on the work and dedication of many employees and contractors.”

Talking neutrons

13/07/2012 00:00:00

How do you protect ITER's components against neutrons moving 50,000 times faster than a bullet? That was the question when a group of international neutronics experts met at CCFE last week.

Neutrons are at the core of fusion research. As a product of the fusion reaction, they provide the energy we will convert to electricity in powerplants, but there is a downside too. The incredibly fast particles flying out of the plasma at around 50,000 km per second (about a sixth of the speed of light) can, not surprisingly, damage anything that gets in their way, namely the materials surrounding the tokamak.

That's why there is a dedicated area of study into the behaviour of neutrons – ‘neutronics' – operating across the fusion community. Their work is of particular interest for the ITER tokamak, and is key for the achievement of the project's scientific and engineering goals, ensuring adequate nuclear design of components such as blanket modules and toroidal field coils. Neutronics work for ITER is largely organised by ITER and F4E (the European ITER agency). Each component, diagnostic port plugs, tritium breeding systems, heating systems, magnets and vacuum vessel, require nuclear analyses to ensure the durability and operation of ITER. CCFE itself is involved in the nuclear analysis of ITER components including ion cyclotron resonance heating, neutral beam injection heating, tritium systems and several others.

More than 40 scientists attended the 7th ITER Neutronics Meeting on 4-6 July. The group's job is to co-ordinate ITER neutronics activities across the member states. Numerous institutes across Europe, China, India and the US were represented at the Culham meeting.

CCFE's Andrew Davis, one of the organisers, said: “The meeting went very well and it was excellent to see so many organisations attending. As well as neutronics work for ITER, it was useful in keeping everyone abreast of changes to neutron transport codes and modelling methodologies. Oak Ridge attended for the first time, and their contribution can potentially enable us to apply fission-based methods to our fusion work. It was also the first time that a commercial organisation (Amec) was there – it's important to get industry interested in fusion.

“The annual neutronics meetings are critical to the success of ITER; they allow the community to pool knowledge and so increase the quality of calculations we can perform. It was good to hold it at Culham since we have a significant presence in the neutronics community.”

Revised edition of seminal fusion book

12/07/2012 00:00:00

The second edition of Fusion: The energy of the universe, the essential reference book on fusion, has been published.

Written by former Culham scientists Garry McCracken and Peter Stott, it covers the basic principles of fusion energy, from its history to the issues and realities progressing from the present day energy crisis. The book also provides detailed developments and applications for researchers entering the field of fusion energy research.

This revised edition includes recent progress on the ITER tokamak at Cadarache, France. In addition it brings readers up to date on inertial confinement fusion projects – NIF (US), LMJ (France), HiPER (Europe) and FIREX (Japan).

For more information see the following web page:
http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780123846563

Ian Chapman awarded international physics prize

10/07/2012 00:00:00

CCFE researcher Dr Ian Chapman has won the 2012 IUPAP Plasma Physics Young Scientist Prize. The award recognises exceptional achievement in the study of plasma physics by scientists at a relatively junior stage of their career.

It is one of a series of prestigious annual awards made by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, a non-governmental organisation whose mission is to assist in the worldwide development of physics.

Dr Chapman, who is pictured receiving the prize at the recent European Physical Society plasma physics conference in Stockholm, was nominated for his ‘fundamental contributions to the theory of instabilities in tokamaks and for his development and demonstration of practical ways to control instabilities in fusion plasmas.'

He said: ‘Naturally I'm delighted and humbled that IUPAP have given me this award. I see this not as much as recognition of my endeavours, but as testament to all the co-authors and collaborators I have been fortunate enough to work with – this is for their initiative, their enthusiasm and their guidance.'

Neutral beam powers into the record books

09/07/2012 00:00:00

On Tuesday 26 June, record neutral beam powers of 25MW were injected into four JET plasmas - exceeding the previous best of 24 MW injected back in 2009. This led to happy faces all round in the Control Room from both the physicists and the neutral beam operations team.

The experiments being undertaken on plasma instabilities – so-called 'edge localised modes' (ELMs) – required consistently high heating power. CCFE staff, who operate JET on behalf of researchers from around Europe, pulled out all the stops on the recently-upgraded neutral beam system. This enabled high quality data to be acquired on how edge plasma instabilities impacted on the plasma-facing surfaces, and particularly on the temperature of the plasma strike points in the divertor region near the bottom of the fusion chamber. JET's Session Leader on the day, Dominico Frigione, was delighted with the results.

Reliable plasma operation helped the neutral beam team push to these record powers, with 14 out of a possible 16 PINIs (neutral beam power sources) available. Relatively high plasma density operation and permission to push to higher beam voltages (110 kV compared to the usual 100kV) coupled with vital conditioning of the injectors led to these impressive results, to the delight of CCFE's Neutral Beam Operations Manager, Ian Day: “The achievement is the result of the hard work and dedication of the neutral beam and power supply teams over the past two years to realise the potential of the EP2 Neutral Beam upgrade," he said.

Steve Cowley wins Glazebrook Medal

02/07/2012 00:00:00

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of CCFE and CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, has been awarded the Institute of Physics' 2012 Glazebrook Medal.

The Glazebrook Medal is given to reward leadership in a physics context. It is one of the Institute's annual awards to honour physicists who are making remarkable contributions to all areas of physics, as well as physics outreach and education, and the application of physics and physics-based technologies.

Professor Cowley receives the award for his leadership of the United Kingdom's magnetic fusion programme at Culham, and for his seminal contributions to plasma and fusion science.

He said: “I am absolutely delighted! This medal is very much a recognition of the excellence of Culham and its phenomenal team of scientists and engineers.I am privileged to lead them."

Plasma fingers point to the taming of the ELM

26/06/2012 00:00:00

New images from the MAST device at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy could find a solution to one of the biggest plasma physics problems standing in the way of the development of fusion power.

MAST (the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) is the first experiment to observe finger-like lobe structures emanating from the bottom of the hot plasma inside the tokamak's magnetic chamber. The information is being used to tackle a harmful plasma instability known as the ‘edge localised mode', which has the potential to damage components in future fusion machines, including the key next-step ITER device.

Edge localised modes (ELMs) expel bursts of energy and particles from the plasma. Akin to solar flares on the edge of the Sun, ELMs happen during high-performance mode of operation (‘H-mode'), in which energy is retained more effectively, but pressure builds up at the plasma's edge. When the pressure rises, an ELM occurs – ejecting a jet of hot material (visible in this video). As the energy released by these events strike material surfaces, they cause erosion which could have a serious impact on the lifetime of plasma-facing materials.

One way of tackling the problem is ‘ELM mitigation' – controlling the instabilities at a manageable level to limit the amount of harm they can do. MAST is using a mitigation technique called resonant magnetic perturbation; applying small magnetic fields around the tokamak to punch holes in the plasma edge and release the pressure in a measured way. This technique has been successful in curbing ELMs on several tokamaks.

The lobe structures that have recently been observed in MAST are caused by the resonant magnetic perturbation, which shakes the plasma and throws particles off course as they move around the magnetic field lines in the plasma, changing their route and destination. Some particles end up outside the field lines, forming finger-like offshoots near the base of the plasma. Changing the shape of a small area of the plasma in this way lowers the pressure threshold at which ELMs are triggered. This should therefore allow researchers to produce a stream of smaller, less powerful ELMs that will not damage the tokamak.

First predicted by US researcher Todd Evans in 2004, the lobes – known as homoclinic tangles – were seen for the first time during experiments at MAST in December 2011, thanks to the UK tokamak's excellent high-speed cameras. CCFE scientist Dr Andrew Kirk, who leads ELM studies on MAST, said:

“This could be an important discovery for tackling the ELM problem, which is one of the biggest concerns for physicists at ITER. The aim for ITER is to remove ELMs completely, but it is useful to have back-up strategies which mitigate them instead. The lobes we have identified at MAST point towards a promising way of doing this.”

The lobes are significant for another reason; they are a good indicator of how well the resonant magnetic perturbation is working: “The length of the lobes is determined by the amount of magnetic perturbation the plasma is seeing,” explains Dr Kirk. “So the longer the ‘fingers', the deeper the penetration. If the fingers are too long, we can see that it has gone too far in and will start to disturb the core, which is what we want to avoid.”

The next phase of the research will involve developing codes to map how particles will be deposited and how the lobes will be formed around the plasma.

“We already have codes that can determine the location of the fingers but we cannot predict their length due to uncertainties in how the plasma reacts to the applied perturbations. Our measurements will allow us to validate which models correctly take this plasma response into account,” said Dr Kirk. “New codes will mean we can produce accurate predictions for ITER and help them tame the ELM.”

Images:

Top right – lobe structures near the bottom of the MAST plasma caused by resonant magnetic perturbation
Middle right – the same area of the plasma without resonant magnetic perturbation
Bottom right – a MAST plasma with an ELM filament enlarged, highlighting its similarity with a solar flare

The research can be found in Physical Review Letters, 22 June 2012
Volume 108, Issue 25.

Video of lobe structures forming in the MAST plasma:

Music to their ears

15/06/2012 00:00:00

Pupils from Chilton Primary School have been tuning up their science knowledge with a radio project supervised by CCFE engineer Margaret Graham.

Over the past few months, Margaret (pictured right with a group from the school) has been working with Chilton in her spare time to give pupils in years 2 to 6 (6-11 years old) an understanding of maths, science, engineering and technology.

As well as helping with lessons, she has been running a project for 15 children at the school to build crystal radio sets. This involved learning about the components, putting the radios together, testing them and then presenting their work to the rest of the school. To complete the radio project, a podcast radio station is being set up which will allow children to share their experiences with the school and parents, so gaining an understanding of the importance of communication and how radios can be utilised.

CCFE is keen to help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and runs a busy education outreach programme. Margaret's involvement with Chilton Primary School is a great example of how people who work in science can fire young people's imagination, and it seems to have gone down well at the school.

As the children explained in their own words, "it was hard getting it all together'" and "it was hard to understand all the different parts - which bits joined to which?", but they were amazed to learn that "a radio can work without batteries" and enjoyed "making the radio work, so that we could actually hear things".

Headteacher Sandra North said: "It has been a great success, and the outcomes for the children have far exceeded our expectations. Margaret worked tirelessly to make some complex physics accessible to the children with artefacts and video, practical activities and IT.

"The project will continue into the new school year with the development of a school radio station. This will be available as podcast on our website, and we will let Margaret know when we are ready to record our first programmes."

Margaret added: "All of the school have enjoyed learning about the different aspects of how a radio works, even the teachers. I have relished being given the chance to share with the children the exciting opportunities in careers such as science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been great fun, especially seeing the children's faces and the enthusiasm they showed while completing the tasks and experiments in the lessons."

More than party balloons

31/05/2012 00:00:00

A new book about the future of helium has been co-edited by CCFE Cryogenic Technologist Richard Clarke.

The Future of Helium as a Natural Resource, published by Routledge, is the first book to focus in detail on both the supply and demand of helium. Although most people know it best as the gas used in party balloons, there are many scientific and industrial applications for helium. There is a growing concern over a long-term shortage – and one of the main findings of the book is a recommendation for a new international body to ensure there is a sustainable market for this valuable resource.

Chapters study the potential impact of helium supplies in a number of fields, including medical imaging, the nuclear fission industry and fusion, as well as its development in major economies such as Russia and India.

Richard Clarke collaborated on the book with William Nuttall, a Senior Lecturer in Technology Policy at the Judge Business School, and Bartek Glowacki, a Professor in Materials Science and Metallurgy – both from the University of Cambridge. The idea for the book arose from an international workshop in Cambridge attended by 40 helium market experts and major users (both actual and potential), such as CERN, EFDA and Generation-4 fission.

“We hope that the book will appeal to postgraduate students, policy formers and businesspeople in a wide range of disciplines including physics, chemistry, engineering, energy, earth sciences, medicine and resource economics,” said Richard Clarke.

“Helium is seen as having an important role to play in fusion cryogenic systems and superconducting magnets on ITER and in future power stations. Back in 2005 we felt we wanted to know more about helium's availability. This book is an outcome of a fascinating journey that has included a PhD and collaboration with helium experts across the world.

“The big challenge now is for the natural gas industry to better preserve known geological helium reserves until one day, perhaps, there will be a way to economically extract helium from air – because 99% of the helium on Earth is in the atmosphere.”

Richard Clarke will be talking about the changing dynamics of the helium industry in an interview on the BBC Radio 4 programme Material World. It will be broadcast on Thursday 31 May at 16:30 and again on Monday 4 June at 21:30, and will also be available on BBC iPlayer.

The Future of Helium as a Natural Resource is available at: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780203120675/

A detailed account of the book has been published in Nature magazine, and can be found at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7400/full/485573a.html

More information on this week's edition of Material World at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j6t0n

High speed, low cost

23/05/2012 00:00:00

A workshop hosted by CCFE showed researchers from around Europe how FPGA devices can be used in fusion.

FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) are high-speed electronic devices that can allow much faster – effectively real-time – control over parameters on experimental devices.

CCFE’s Graham Naylor has been working to encourage the adoption of FPGAs in fusion and secured the services of leading American programmable technology firm Xilinx to carry out the training. The week-long course involved 20 participants from four countries and covered how the technology can be applied to diagnostics, neutral beam injection, power supply, data acquisition, and machine and plasma control. It built on the success of an initial FPGA workshop held at Culham in January 2011.

Graham Naylor said: “FPGAs are rapidly growing in performance and allow sophisticated functions to be performed at low cost. This is important for fusion applications as there are demands for high performance of instrumentation, yet budgets are frequently stretched. The new technology provided by FPGAs allows high performance to be achieved within budget.”

Steve Cowley at Cheltenham Science Festival

18/05/2012 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley is one of the speakers at the 2012 Cheltenham Science Festival.

Professor Cowley will be giving two talks on Wednesday 13 June: Fusion: the holy grail of electricity generation? (a joint talk with plasma physicist Kate Lancaster, beginning at 20.15); and Superconductors at 18.15 – an exploration of exciting possibilities from the cutting edge of physics with Stephen Blundell and Mark Lythgoe.

Full details of all events at the festival, which runs from 12-17 June, can be found at: www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science.

MAST Update - Spring 2012

01/05/2012 00:00:00

Photograph of the MAST team – April 2012

MAST's experimental campaign M8 ended on 27 January. Since then a range of engineering and diagnostic tasks have been completed on the machine.

Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) heating systems

The MAST NBI team have conditioned the injectors to higher power. This endeavour exploited recent improvements, including a new fast data acquisition system, and was very successful. Both injectors have been operated at powers up to ~2.2MW and operation of the SW-PINI at full design voltage (75kV) has been demonstrated.

Electron Cyclotron Resonant Heating systems

Extensive electrical remedial work has been undertaken in the ECRH control room and pump room in recent weeks. This has now been completed and the 28GHz gyrotron, on loan from ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), has been brought back into operation.

Engineering plans and operating schedule

The short summer experimental campaign, originally planned for EBW (Electron Bernstein Wave) start-up studies, will not now take place. It is planned to install a new crane and additional toroidal field sliding joints for the MAST-Upgrade project before MAST operation resumes in early November.

MAST Research Forum

The MAST Research Forum was held on 27-28 March, focusing on reviews of results from M8 and outline plans for M9. There were also presentations on NSTX/NSTX-U by Stan Kaye/Ron Strykowski (PPPL, USA) and on MAST-Upgrade by Joe Milnes and Ioannis Katramados. The forum was well attended and the general consensus was that presentations were of very high quality. International attendees included collaborators from Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands and Japan. UK universities were also well-represented (including senior staff from York and Durham). Collaborators from Juelich, Garching, Princeton and ITER joined in remotely for specific sessions.

Catapult challenge for Culham apprentices

10/04/2012 00:00:00

Seven apprentices from Culham recently did battle in a 'Trebuchet and Rocket Building Competition' as part of the Oxfordshire Science Festival.

The contest at Cokethorpe School saw the apprentices and pupils from the school applying their engineering skills to construct medieval-style catapults and see who could hurl water balloons furthest through the air.

Over 200 members of the public joined in the fun too. Families visiting the event were able to build mini-trebuchets and try other hands-on science activities such as robot building and creating machines to fire ping-pong balls.

CCFE engineering apprentice Lydia Feasey, who took part, said: “It was a good experience and luckily we had hot and sunny weather. All the apprentices got the opportunity to work on a project together and on the day it paid off, because lots of people turned up to the event and the children could even fire the trebuchets themselves from a distance.”

Organisers Science Oxford hope to expand the competition for next year's festival and get even more people involved.

Pictured is Matthew Evans, a first year apprentice from Culham firm Reaction Engines, with the trebuchet.

MAST Research Forum

03/04/2012 00:00:00

The eighth MAST Research Forum was held on 27-28th March at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, focusing on reviews of results from the 2011-12 campaign of experiments and outline plans for 2012-13.

Brian Lloyd, Head of MAST Experiments Department, reports:
"The most recent MAST campaign was the most successful and productive campaign to date. Exciting new results were presented at the Forum on a wide range of topics, exploiting new plasma diagnostics and other facilities such as the recently upgraded coil arrays for control of edge localised modes (ELMs). There were also presentations on MAST-Upgrade and U.S. collaborators reported on the status and plans for NSTX Upgrade, at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

"The forum was very well attended. UK universities were well-represented and international attendees included collaborators from Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands and Japan. Collaborators from Juelich, Garching, Princeton and ITER joined in remotely. The next MAST campaign will begin in late Autumn."

UK researchers win EFDA Fellowships

30/03/2012 00:00:00

UK fusion physicists Andrew Thornton and Koki Imada have received EFDA Fellowships to advance their fusion research.

Each year the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA), which co-ordinates fusion research in Europe, awards several post-doctoral Fellowships. The fully-funded two-year awards are given as part of its development programme to ensure the training of experts for the future of fusion.

This year two of these were given to researchers from Britain – CCFE's Andrew Thornton and Koki Imada from the University of York.

Andrew Thornton

Andrew is an experimental physicist on MAST. His project will be on the effect of resonant magnetic perturbations on heat loads and strike points during ELM (Edge Localised Mode) mitigation and inter-ELM periods with Andrew Kirk and Geoff Fishpool.

The release of particles and energy from the plasma during an ELM pose a challenge to ITER. Mitigation techniques will be required for ITER to control ELMs, and one such method is the use of magnetic perturbations to modify the plasma edge. Measurement of the size and shape of the heat loads to the plasma facing components can be used to assess the effect of mitigation, allowing understanding of the mechanism by which the perturbation operates.

"I am very grateful for being awarded an EFDA Fellowship,” said Andrew. “The Fellowship will allow me develop in an area of physics new to me which is of key importance to the operation and design of ITER.”

Koki Imada
Koki Imada is a theoretical physicist, working at the University of York, who will be studying the Neoclassical Tearing Mode (NTM) instability threshold. In particular his research focuses on the influence of the polarisation current on the threshold, relevant when the magnetic islands associated with the NTM are in relative motion with the plasma.

"The Fellowship is a very prestigious award, which gives me an opportunity to visit laboratories around the world and carry out fusion research," said Koki.

CCFE Chief Scientist William Morris added: "The EFDA Fellowships are awarded to very able post-doctoral researchers. I was delighted to learn that both the UK candidates were successful and featured among the eleven that were appointed this year. This is really excellent news, and well-deserved recognition of Andrew's and Koki's work."

Design work for ITER is hotting up

28/03/2012 00:00:00

CCFE engineers, together with staff from the Design Office at Culham, have completed the design for two components of the ITER neutral beam heating system.

Their work is part of the MITICA (Megavolt ITER Injector Concept Advancement), the construction of a full-sized neutral beam test facility being built at the RFX fusion experiment in Padua, Italy. CCFE staff have designed the calorimeter and ERID (Electrostatic Residual Ion Dump) components for this equipment.

The purpose of the ERID is to capture the deuterium or hydrogen ions that have not been neutralised by the upstream neutraliser in the heating system. The ions cannot be injected into the tokamak because they will be deflected by the magnetic fields and cause excessive heating of the surrounding components.

The calorimeter is positioned immediately after the ERID and consists of a pair of movable panels that can intercept the remaining neutral particles in order to measure their power distribution and allow the beam source to be commissioned prior to injecting into the plasma.

The drawing (right) shows where these components will fit in the ITER neutral beam system.

Testing the conditions for ITER
MITICA will consist of a complete neutral beam system virtually identical to the three that are planned to be installed at ITER and will allow it to be operated and tested over the full range of conditions required for ITER.

This is a key stage in the neutral beam system development, allowing the operation and characteristics of this complex system to be fully evaluated before building the 'real' ITER system.

From design to manufacture
CCFE's work involved taking early design concepts, developing and detailing them as the project requirements evolved. A considerable amount of analysis was also required, to prove that the components will survive the very high heat loads that they will be exposed to in ITER. RFX will now take the components on to the final detailed design stage, and manufacture is expected to begin in 2013.

This work was the culmination of over two years of design grants, with CCFE working as a third party to Consorzio RFX. “The exceptional quality of the design work, which was recently acknowledged by an ITER design review panel, is a testament to the team's design and analysis skills as well as their extensive experience in the design of large, complex fusion systems,” said Joe Milnes, Head of CCFE's Engineering Design & Evaluation Group.

Robin and Jack make it a fusion double!

23/03/2012 00:00:00

CCFE's Robin Stafford Allen and Jack Snape were both winners in this year's 'I'm a Scientist Get Me Out of Here' and 'I'm an Engineer Get Me Out of Here' competitions.

As previously reported, the contests are a chance for secondary school students up and down the UK to talk to real scientists and engineers, ask them questions about their work, and then vote for their favourites at the end.

After two weeks of rigorous questioning from the students, Robin and Jack survived the nerve-jangling daily eviction votes to emerge victorious in their respective Energy Zones. They both win £500 to spend on science and engineering communications activities.

Robin, a Mechanical Engineer at CCFE, comments: "The competition has been great fun. I spent many hours, particularly in the evenings, answering questions from the students (I had 53 one night). Some are predictable and then once in a while along comes a corker of a question, such as 'Would you have liked to be an engineer in the time of the Romans?' The chat-rooms gave me an insight into the life in the classroom. There was a heartening and very mature attitude in some 12 and 13 year-olds with questions showing concern for the environment and appreciating the advantages of fusion in the future.

"For Jack and myself to come out on top is the icing on the cake! I shall miss it next week. I will be giving the prize to the CCFE Sponsorship Fund, to donate to local primary and secondary schools to promote science and engineering projects."

Jack, a PhD student at the University of York who is affiliated to CCFE, adds: "I had an excellent time doing 'I'm a Scientist...'. There was a great mix of questions, from the deeply philosophical to the downright daft. Hopefully Robin and I have excited some future fusion scientists and engineers!"

Well done to both of them for winning these high-profile competitions and inspiring students up and down the country. For more details see:
http://imascientist.org.uk/2012/03/day-10-final-evictions
http://imanengineer.org.uk/2012/03/day-10-congratulations-to-the-winning-engineers

International accolade for CCFE researchers

22/03/2012 00:00:00

Two papers from CCFE scientists have been included in Nuclear Fusion journal's 2011 research highlights.

As the leading international journal specialising in fusion physics, Nuclear Fusion covers all aspects of research, theoretical and practical, relevant to controlled thermonuclear fusion.

Each year the journal selects the best research to feature in its highlights collection. The collection contains 12 articles which received an excellent response from the research community, were deemed highly commended by the journal's editorial board and were highly downloaded throughout the year.

The two articles involving CCFE researchers are:

Modelling of plasma response to resonant magnetic perturbation fields in MAST and ITER
(authors include Yueqiang Liu, Andrew Kirk, Mikhail Gryaznevich and Tim Hender from CCFE)
https://iopscience.iop.org/0029-5515/51/8/083002
Neutron-induced transmutation effects in W and W-alloys in a fusion environment
(authors: Mark Gilbert and Jean-Christophe Sublet from CCFE)
https://iopscience.iop.org/0029-5515/51/4/043005

Congratulations to those involved for their achievement, which is a reflection of the world-class research being carried out at Culham.

The full highlights collection can be viewed at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0029-5515/page/Highlights%20of%202011.

Public lecture on fusion - 4 April

21/03/2012 00:00:00

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of CCFE, will be giving a public lecture at St Hugh's College in Oxford. Organised by the Institute of Physics, the event will be held on Wednesday 4 April 2012 from 18:00-19:00.

Professor Cowley will give an overview of the aims, technologies and opportunities in fusion, and present the latest in tokamak research. He will be joined by Professor Peter Roberts of AWE, who will speak about progress in laser fusion.

Although tickets are not required, space is limited and those wishing to book their place are asked to register with the IOP conference department. Please email conferences@iop.org with the subject heading of “Plasma Physics Group – Public Lecture”.

More details at the link below:
Poster for IOP public lecture on fusion, 4 April 2012

Professor Cowley appeared on Irish radio station Newstalk's 'Futureproof' programme last Saturday. A wide-ranging interview covered the advantages of fusion energy, plans for ITER and the challenges of controlling super-hot plasmas ten times hotter than the Sun. You can listen to the interview here (43 minutes into the programme).
Professor Roger Cashmore, Chairman of CCFE and the UK Atomic Energy Authority, recently took part in a Science Question Time debate on nuclear energy organised by the Campaign for Science and Engineering. Other panel members included climate campaigner Baroness Worthington, Greenpeace's Doug Parr and Antony Froggatt from Chatham House. The podcast of the debate is available below.

Online ‘X-factor style’ competitions to showcase fusion research

09/03/2012 00:00:00

Gone are the jungle, Bushtucker Trials, and celebrities; there are no snakes, spiders or other animals.

In their place are professional scientists and engineers communicating their work remotely to school students in this national competition to gain their votes – this is I'm a Scientist Get Me Out of Here and I'm an Engineer Get Me Out of Here.

I'm a Scientist / Engineer Get Me Out of Here contest – the background

The competition runs over two weeks from 12-23 March and has different themed ‘zones' e.g. Energy, Quantum and Space.
Contestants take part in a live web chat every day, each time with a different school.
The students will ask them questions on science/engineering and what it's like being a scientist/engineer.
Students can also send in their questions for them to answer outside of the chatroom.
In the second week of the contest, a scientist will be ‘evicted' every day – based on the votes of students from the participating schools. The students will decided based on who they think is best at explaining science, and who comes across well. At the end of the fortnight, each zone will have a winning scientist
For every scientist who was selected, six applied, so it's an achievement just to make it this far. To apply, the scientists had to write a sentence that summed up what they did – voting then took place to decide who would get in.
Oh, there's also no King or Queen of the Jungle – the winner in each zone is given £500 to spend on communicating science or engineering.

So who's taking part from CCFE?

Name: Jack Snape
Occupation: PhD Student – University of York
Jack is in the third year of his PhD studying tearing modes. As part of his research he regularly visits CCFE and last year spent three months working on MAST, including running plasmas.

His decision to apply for the contest was influenced by hearing from a fellow student who had taken part last year and really enjoyed it. Jack already has experience of education and outreach work gained from helping take the CCFE Sun Dome to schools in the York area.

Fitting the web chats in around his daily work will be challenging, but Jack is not deterred and is looking forward to the contest. He just hopes that he isn't the first scientist in his zone to be evicted!

Read his full profile, you can find him in the Science Energy Zone: http://energym12.imascientist.org.uk/profile/jacksnape

Name: Robin Stafford Allen
Occupation: Mechanical Engineer
Robin is working on the mechanical engineering of the plasma-heating equipment for ITER. He is a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), and started his varied professional career in the motor industry at General Motors.

As an IMechE and STEMNET ‘Ambassador' Robin has taken part in activities promoting engineering for many years, working on projects in Primary and Secondary School with the ‘Neighbourhood Engineers' scheme in the 1990's, supporting Careers Evenings at his old school, and he is a Formula Student Judge (last three years) at the IMechE event in Silverstone. With all this experience, he will be like a duck to water, when he communicates his engineering expertise to the students in the chat rooms.

Read his full profile, you can find him in the Engineering Energy Zone:

http://energym12.imanengineer.org.uk/profile/robinstaffordallen

Both Jack and Robin are hoping they are going to be in their contests for a long time. Follow their progress and that of the other participants at:

http://energym12.imascientist.org.uk/

http://imanengineer.org.uk/

CCFE strengthens links with Oxford research unit

01/03/2012 00:00:00

CCFE’s Dr David Ward has been appointed a Visiting Fellow of the Oxford University's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Led by former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government Professor Sir David King, the work of the Smith School focuses on addressing future challenges for humanity such as clean water, food production and energy requirements. Its aim is that by partnering with the school, ‘businesses and governments benefit from a broad spectrum of expertise to inform decisions that address sustainability challenges and improve long-term business objectives.'

Dr Ward leads the UK work on the demonstration fusion powerplant 'DEMO', and is an expert in the socio-economic aspects of fusion.

“Working as a Visiting Fellow at the Smith School is a good opportunity to build on both my work in fusion and my background of work with researchers in other areas of energy,” he said. “ I hope that both the Smith School and CCFE will benefit from this collaboration and I look forward to this new challenge.”

The coolest upgrade at JET

14/02/2012 00:00:00

Beyond the visible activity during the recent major shutdown on JET – notably the huge amount of work undertaken inside the vessel – other teams took the opportunity to upgrade and improve their experimental facilities. None more so than the Cryogenics Group, who undertook a complete refurbishment of the control system and wiring of the cryoplant.

Ironic as it may sound, creating incredibly high temperature plasmas inside JET requires, amongst other things, the coldest of fluids – notably vast quantities of liquid Nitrogen (at -196 degrees C) and liquid Helium (-269 degrees C). The cryoplant is designed to store, move and recover these valuable cryofluids as efficiently as possible. It is overseen by CCFE as part of its role to operate JET under the European Fusion Development Agreement.

Cryoplant engineer Tony Haupt takes up the story: “For the past five to six years the cryoplant has struggled to keep up with the demand for liquid Helium and has, on occasions, necessitated amendments to the JET physics program to cater for the short supply.”

The efficiency of controlling this whole system was clearly not as it should be so the group undertook to literally start from scratch, as Tony explains: “We decided to start all over again, with a whole new system of control hardware and software, right down to replacing all the previous wiring. All of this had been built up piecemeal over the last 25-30 years and needed a complete overhaul.”

The newly-commissioned system uses the latest control technology, in clear, modular components. Cryogenic engineer James Booth explains: “We have utilised the best hardware and software that is available, much of it from Rockwell Automation. The new modular system means we can easily spot potential problems and make changes to the system much more quickly.”

Tony and the team are delighted with the end result, with commissioning of the new system completed in December 2011: “Now, the plant is making more liquid Helium than we know what to do with! The new system is saving 100-200 tons of liquid Nitrogen per month – worth £5,000-10,000. In addition, Helium losses have also been reduced to the tune of £5,000-10,000 per month.”

Photo details:
Top – Engineers Tony Haupt, James Booth and Paul Tonner at the cryoplant
Bottom – Andy Lawson inspects the new equipment

CCFE at the Oxfordshire Science Festival 2012

07/02/2012 00:00:00

Meet CCFE staff at 'Science in Your World', a family science fair which kicks off the 2012 Oxfordshire Science Festival on Saturday 3 March. The free event in Oxford's Bonn Square will be open from 10am to 4pm, so come along and try out hands-on science demonstrations from us and other locally-based science organisations.

The Oxfordshire Science Festival is an annual celebration of science which engages the public through lectures, discussions, debates and interactive activities. Almost 100 events will be happening between 3 March and 18 March. There's something for all ages who have an interest in science and want to have fun exploring a topic of their choice. This year's highlights include a stargazing session, a Marvellous Medicine Trail and a look at the science behind steam engines with Thomas the Tank Engine.

CCFE apprentices will be taking part in the festival's Trebuchet and Rocket Building Competition at Cokethorpe School on Sunday 25 March. This 'Scrapheap Challenge'-style event promises to be great fun, with budding inventors welcome to come along and get involved.

Details of all the festival activities can be found at: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.co.uk/

MAST Update - Winter 2011/12

01/02/2012 00:00:00

MAST's experimental campaign M8, which began in Spring 2011, was brought to a successful conclusion on Friday 27 January. After a slow and problematic start, M8 has turned out to be the most successful and productive MAST campaign to date.

All new and recently upgraded diagnostics, many of which were developed in collaboration with UK and international partners, operated well in M8.

These devices include:

Beam emission spectroscopy (BES);
Fast ion D-alpha (FIDA);
Neutron camera
Electron Bernstein wave (EBW) imaging
Fast edge Doppler spectroscopy (ECELESTE);
Spark plug impurity injector;
Retarding field energy analyzers (RFEAs).

Their use resulted in substantial progress being made in a wide range of physics areas.

Additional internal coils were used to study ELM control by applying resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs). These were the highest priority experiments in M8, generating significant new results and improved understanding. Other experimental highlights included:

BES measurements of low-k turbulence (with KFKI Hungary and Oxford University);
Studies of fast particle instabilities and fast ion redistribution (with Uppsala University, Imperial College and Warwick University);
L-H transition and pedestal studies including EBW imaging (with York & Durham Universities);
Fast edge Doppler spectroscopy measurements (ECELESTE);
Exhaust physics studies including ion energy measurements using RFEAs (with Liverpool University, CEA and IPP Garching).

Preparations are being made for a dedicated effort to demonstrate operation of the MAST PINIs at full design performance in the run up to Easter. Prior to the NBI conditioning programme, several system improvements are presently being implemented and some remedial work is being carried out on the NBI HV power supplies.

There will be a short (~6 week) campaign in the summer for Electron Bernstein Wave (EBW) start-up studies and other Ohmic experiments (e.g. magnetic reconnection, TAE damping, RMP effects). The next main experimental campaign will begin in early November.

The MAST Research Forum will be held on 27-28 March at Culham. It will mainly focus on a review of results from M8 and outline plans for M9 to provide guidance and a framework for experiment proposal preparation. Proposals will be collated and prioritised by the Programme Leaders in advance of a planning meeting in September where they will be presented and discussed in detail and the M9 programme finalised.

MAST finishes successful experimental campaign

31/01/2012 00:00:00

The UK's fusion facility, MAST, has completed its latest run of experiments. One of the highlights of Campaign M8 was the performance of MAST's upgraded suite of diagnostic systems, which generated improved data on the behaviour of fusion plasmas. Many of these are the product of collaborations between CCFE and colleagues at other European fusion associations and at UK universities.

Dr Brian Lloyd, Head of the MAST Experiments Department at CCFE, said: "The new diagnostics have all performed extremely well. Collaborations are absolutely crucial to the success of MAST – in addition to developing new diagnostics, our collaborators also lead experiments and undertake theory and modelling in support of the programme."

Researchers also achieved the first results using an extra set of magnetic coils to control 'ELMs' (Edge Localised Modes) – instabilities at the edge of the plasma that impair its confinement inside the tokamak.

Dr Lloyd added: "This campaign has gone well and we've met almost all of our original objectives. We've carried out a wide range of experiments, but our highest priority has been to study ELM plasma instabilities. These instabilities are a feature of high performance plasmas and cause excess heat loads on plasma-facing materials. So what we've been doing is using new control coils to try and perturb the plasma by applying magnetic fields to it, in such a way that we can control the instability without adversely affecting plasma performance. These experiments have helped to provide new insights into the physics of the control process."

Experiments will start again later in 2012 before a major upgrade of MAST gets underway during 2013.

Watch an interview with Dr Brian Lloyd on recent progress at MAST and plans for the future:

Royal Society's tribute to Derek Robinson

19/01/2012 00:00:00

The Royal Society has published a biographical memoir of the late Derek Robinson, Culham Director from 1998-2002.

In 1994, Dr Robinson was honoured with a Fellowship of the Royal Society, one of the most prestigious awards in UK science. When a Fellow of the Royal Society dies it is customary for someone familiar with him and his work to write a short biography for the Royal Society, to record his life and achievements, usually within a few years of his death. Each year, in December, a collection of these is published as a hardback edition entitled Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.

Despite the passage of some years since Dr Robinson's untimely death in 2002, no such memoir was written. This omission came to the attention of CCFE scientists Colin Windsor and Jack Connor, themselves Fellows of the Royal Society. They collaborated to write a biographical memoir, published in the December 2011 edition.

“Colin and I felt the absence of a biographical memoir needed rectifying, particularly given Derek Robinson's huge contributions to the development of fusion research," said Jack Connor. “So we are pleased to have co-authored what we hope is a fitting tribute to his work.”

The full biographical memoir can be viewed at: http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/57/395.full.pdf+html

Derek Robinson is pictured (left) during the famous Culham expedition to Moscow to confirm the results of the first tokamak, the Kurchatov Institute's T3 device, in 1969.

MAST Update - Winter 2012

17/01/2012 00:00:00

The operation of MAST during the last two months has been extremely reliable and productive. Over 700 pulses were fired, of which only 10% were lost due to technical problems (power supplies, diagnostics, data acquisition, neutral beams etc.)

Diagnostic update

The new diagnostics continue to generate excellent data and the upgraded edge Doppler spectroscopy diagnostic (ECELESTE) is now also operational. Full details of some of the new and upgraded MAST diagnostics can be found in Issue 2 of InFusion. Beam Emission Spectroscopy (BES) measurements (collaboration with KFKI-RMKI Hungary) of plasma turbulence have been obtained in several plasma regimes with excellent signal-to-background ratio (see above image).

The new Electron Bernstein Wave (EBW) imaging system (a collaboration with the University of York and Durham University) clearly exhibits mode conversion windows from which the magnetic field pitch angle can be obtained.

Progress in physics areas

Substantial progress has been made in a wide range of physics areas, namely:

Edge Localised Mode (ELM) control including pellet refuelling;
Turbulence measurements (with KFKI-RMKI & Oxford University);
Retarding Field Energy Analyzer measurements (with Liverpool University, CEA and IPP Garching);
Confinement and confinement threshold studies;
ELM evolution;
EBW imaging for edge current profile measurements (with York & Durham Universities);
Neutral beam current drive and impact of fast ion diffusion (with Uppsala University);
Fast ion redistribution (with Warwick University);
CAE (Compressional Alfvén Eigenmode) drive mechanism (with Imperial College & Warwick University);
Neo-classical tearing mode physics (with York University);
Impurity transport (with Strathclyde University);
Spark plug impurity injection experiments (with Dublin City University);
Density limit / detachment;
High confinement scenario development.

ELM control studies

ELM control studies remain a very high priority, in view of their importance for ITER. The additional ELM control coils now allow a large range and more accurate magnetic perturbations to be applied. Exploiting these new capabilities, we have obtained better results on ELM mitigation, including successful refuelling by gas puffing and pellets. In the examples shown below, there is a prominent decrease in ELM size and increase in ELM frequency when the resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) is applied (top panel shows ELM coil current in each case). These experiments are being closely co-ordinated with our international partners at IPP Garching, FZ Jülich and General Atomics and are underpinned by modelling activities at CCFE and elsewhere (e.g. FZ Jülich and University of York).

Campaign M8 is scheduled to run to 27 January.

CCFE and Nuvia sign Memorandum of Understanding

16/01/2012 00:00:00

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and Nuvia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support detritiation activities for the next-generation international fusion project ITER.

The MoU, agreed with the direct interest of ITER, will align CCFE’s process and operational knowledge of detritiation systems with Nuvia’s strong process engineering and French Nuclear Licensing capability and deliver a collaborative approach to tritium-related activities for the ITER project.

Speaking of the collaboration, Nuvia Limited’s Chief Executive Keith Collett said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. In uniting CCFE’s unique experience in fusion reactor detritiation, together with Nuvia’s in depth knowledge of the ITER detritiation system and strong relationships with the ITER project team, we have created a formidable alliance for the fulfilment of tritium-related activities for the ITER project.”

Derek Stork, Director of Technology at CCFE, said: “CCFE operates the only gas detritiation system (Active Gas Handling System) in the world, serving the Joint European Torus fusion experiment. It provides the authoritative reference from which ITER has developed the design of its own detritiation system. We are excited about the prospects of our collaboration with Nuvia, our mutual approach to tritium-related activities for the ITER project and specifically for contracts relating to the Atmosphere Detritiation Systems."

Dan Mistry, CCFE Fusion & Industry Manager, added: “CCFE are here to offer their fusion expertise to companies who are looking for ITER business opportunities.”

Steve Cowley to help judge Google Science Fair

12/01/2012 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley will help find the winner of the 2012 Google Science Fair – the world's biggest online science contest.

The Google Science Fair is a competition for curious minds from the four corners of the globe. Anyone from the ages of 13 to 18 can enter – all they need is an idea. Some 7,000 students from 90 countries took part last year. The winning entry from 2011 was a method for improving ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs.

The fair culminates in July when 15 finalists will be invited to Google's headquarters in California. The overall winner will get a $50,000 cash prize, a year's worth of project mentoring, a trip to the Galapagos Islands, and hands-on working experience at Google, CERN, or LEGO.

Professor Cowley said: "I'm very excited about being involved in the Google Science Fair. I'm looking forward to meeting the contestants and seeing their ideas. Today's students will be the inventors and innovators of tomorrow, and this is a great way to get young people around the world involved in science."

More information on the Google Science Fair 2012 at: http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/index.html

‘We’re ready to help build ITER’ says UK industry

10/01/2012 00:00:00

CCFE united with leading British companies to promote the UK's capabilities for the ITER project at the ITER Business Forum (IBF11) in Manosque, France last month. The event showed the breadth of commercial opportunities available at ITER and was a reminder to industry to get involved or risk losing out.

Already, UK industry has secured over €170M of contracts ranging in value from k€ to several M€ from the building of ITER, the next-generation international fusion experiment. ITER will commence operation around 2020 and during the construction period European companies can expect contracts worth on average around €400M annually. Representatives from more than 35 British firms – second only to France – attended the Forum to drive home the message that UK industry is ready, willing and able to play an even greater role in the construction of ITER.

The IBF11 event was an excellent opportunity for companies from across Europe to get the latest information on ITER progress and forthcoming tenders, and to make contacts with project staff and other industrialists. A tour of the ITER construction site at nearby Cadarache (above) also brought the scale of the endeavour home to delegates who commented that ”ITER provides a great opportunity to show the world what UK companies can do.”

“We are now very aware of the scope and depth of the opportunities offered by the ITER project, and the associated challenges we need to gear up for to maximise these,” said Brian Cornah from Simon Carves Engineering Ltd, who attended the Forum. “Meeting up with so many well informed, active participants in the ITER project has been invaluable.”

“I found the ITER Business Forum and site visit experience mind-blowing and exciting,” commented Will Campbell, who represented JGC Engineering and Technical Services at the event. “The technical and engineering challenges in turning the science into reality are currently at the limit of human knowledge and it is therefore a must to have UK engineering expertise involved in expanding these boundaries.”

Marco di Maio from project management consultants Project Globe added: “The IBF was a great place to be if you wanted to catch up with the latest developments around ITER and F4E, and to network with the SMEs and big players of our fellow European countries.”

Also at the event were staff from CCFE who unveiled a new range of technology services based on the huge range of expertise gained over decades of fusion research at Culham. Including remote handling, heating systems, neutronics, fuel cycle, diagnostics, materials modelling and many types of engineering services, details of what CCFE can offer are now available at www.ccfe.ac.uk/technologyservices.aspx.

Dan Mistry, CCFE's Fusion & Industry Manager, who co-ordinated the UK's involvement in the ITER Business Forum, underlined the importance of more companies getting involved in ITER:

“We made a big impact at IBF, accounting for almost 10% of the delegates. I believe that UK companies have tremendous expertise, we are very competitive, we are used to delivering to time and cost, and we speak English, the main language of ITER. I encourage interested businesses to register with us so they don't miss out on these business opportunities.”

To receive contract alerts for ITER and other fusion projects, register free of charge on CCFE's Fusion & Industry database at http://www.fusion-industry.org.uk/register.asp or contact dan.mistry@ccfe.ac.uk.

Go West: Tom's passion for engineering earns award

09/12/2011 00:00:00

CCFE final year apprentice Tom West has won a prestigious award from regional training partnership Oxeta.

Tom won the Grand Award at Oxeta's bursary awards event this week, which was sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Founders. He fought off competition from other engineering apprentices in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire area who are completing their training in 2012, including entrants from BMW, Rolls Royce and Prodrive.

Tom, who is working as a technician in the Remote Handling Group at CCFE, walked away with a £1,000 prize and an invitation to attend a black tie dinner at the Worshipful Company of Founders in London.

To win the award, as well as demonstrating excellence in his technical training, Tom had to show additional attributes such as interpersonal skills and a willingness to be an effective ambassador for apprentices and engineering.

Throughout his time at Culham, Tom has taken part in many outreach activities. He assisted in preparing a display on holographic radar and detection of plastic land mines at the Royal Society's Summer exhibition; starred in a promotional video for apprenticeships with Formula One team principal Ross Brawn; and actively represented CCFE at careers events in the Oxfordshire area. All this in addition to meeting, and discussing his work with, Rt Hon David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, when he visited Culham in September 2010.

Steve Hall, CCFE's Apprentice Group Leader, was understandably very proud of Tom.

“Tom always strives for excellence and makes the most of every opportunity that the Culham apprenticeship offers,” he said. “He has a real passion for engineering and certainly gets the most from the CCFE scheme.

“It was very satisfying to all involved in his training to see Tom win this highly sought-after award. He thoroughly deserves it for his outstanding effort, achievements and commitment to our apprenticeship scheme.“

Tom West is pictured with Steve Hall at the Oxeta bursary awards event.

Oxeta (www.oxeta.com) is a partnership of employers, private training providers and further education colleges in the Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire areas who have come together with the common aim of delivering an applied and relevant educational framework.
The Worshipful Company of Founders (www.foundersco.org.uk) is one of the City of London's oldest livery companies. Originally created to promote high standards of quality and workmanship in working with bronze and brass, it now supports excellence in engineering and manufacture.

ITER funding deal agreed

02/12/2011 00:00:00

CCFE has welcomed the agreement to find the extra €1.3 billion required for ITER in 2012/13.

Representatives of the European Commission, European Parliament and the EU member states agreed a resolution to the project's funding issues in the latest of a series of trilogue meetings yesterday. This paves the way for ITER – the next-generation international experiment crucial to the development of commercial fusion power – to push forward.

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley was understandably delighted: “We have been waiting for this for a long time – it’s great news for the whole of the fusion community," he said.

For more details of the deal, see:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/12/europe-finds-13-billion-needed.html?ref=ra

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/december/eu-reaches-deal-on-iter-funding/72837.aspx

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/12/eu_deal_cuts_iter_12_billion_d.html

Nuclear research report sees wider role for CCFE

28/11/2011 00:00:00

A major new report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology has commended the work undertaken at CCFE.

The report, entitled Nuclear Research and Development Capabilities, analyses the status of nuclear fission research and development in the UK, and recommends how this may be strengthened and built upon to ensure that the UK retains its expertise in this area.

In the composition of this report, the committee invited input from many experts in the field, including Head of CCFE Steve Cowley. It recommends that the UK Government set up a long-term nuclear energy strategy; a nuclear R&D roadmap and an independent nuclear R&D board to oversee this work.

The report recognises the "world-leading" work undertaken at Culham and possible overlap with increasing nuclear fission R&D capabilities in the UK: “In addition, the UK's world-leading fusion programme, led by the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Culham, involves many disciplines which are applicable to, and overlap with fission research capabilities.”

This is in line with UK Government's desire for CCFE to spread its expertise in areas such as materials research (neutronics and irradiation) and tritium handling to the wider nuclear community.

The House of Lords report can be viewed at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldsctech/221/22102.htm

Daniel and Eric’s excellent adventure

23/11/2011 00:00:00

People travel from far and wide to attend Culham's Open Evenings, but two Swedish students set a new record with a 4,000-km trek last week.

Daniel Crosa and Eric Engstrand, from Nyköping – a town 100 kilometres from Stockholm – were keen to visit as they are working on a college project about fusion. And where better to learn than CCFE, which hosts the world's largest tokamak, JET, on behalf of Europe?

Daniel and Eric arranged to come over especially for the Open Evening and joined 80 other guests at the event for a tour of JET and the UK fusion experiment MAST. Due to the effort they had made to attend, CCFE invited them back the following morning and physicist Morten Lennholm answered their questions about fusion.

Eric said: “The Open Evening was very helpful for the basic principles of fusion but for our studies we wanted some more detail, so it was great to meet Morten the following day for a short private tour.”

For more information on Culham Open Evenings go to: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/Visits.aspx

Pictured (left to right): Eric Engstrand, Chris Warrick (CCFE Head of Communications), Morten Lennholm, Daniel Crosa.

Culham backing Bristol-Oxford nuclear partnership

14/11/2011 00:00:00

CCFE is supporting a joint venture between the Universities of Bristol and Oxford to create a research centre for current and future nuclear technologies.

The Bristol-Oxford Nuclear Research Centre was officially launched in Bristol on Tuesday 8 November. Its purpose is to provide leading-edge research to support nuclear systems, including fusion. It will build on links with companies such as EDF and Rolls Royce. CCFE is involved through the major materials research collaboration it has with the University of Oxford.

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley attended the event and gave a talk on "Nuclear Fission and Fusion Energy". Other speakers included the Minister of State for Energy, Charles Hendry MP (pictured during his speech).

More information on the Bristol-Oxford Nuclear Research Centre at: http://www.nrcuk.net/.

Special Techniques Group sets the standard for ITER

11/11/2011 00:00:00

CCFE's Special Techniques Group hosted a successful material joining and vacuum technology training course for engineers from ITER at the start of November.

The four-day workshop at Culham dealt with material joining issues, vacuum technology and theory, approaches to system testing and technical QA procedures. It included a number of seminars and some practical tasks designed to give the delegates a fundamental understanding of these areas.

ITER's Head of QA David Sands has used Special Techniques' services for many years and approached the facility's manager Simon Hanks to arrange the course as a way of tapping into their expertise.

“I've had very positive feedback from the attendees, who thought the course was excellent. I'm already thinking about arranging another one for next year,” said David Sands.

Delegate Ce Ye added: “The training will be very helpful for us at ITER and is good experience to prepare future similar QA inspections.”

Special Techniques offers a ‘one-stop shop' for material joining, from advice and consultancy, through to the design and manufacture of a wide range of technical items using air and vacuum furnaces, brazing, welding and diffusion bonding equipment. The facility has been serving the fusion programmes at Culham for over 40 years and is also in demand from organisations around the world.

“It's a measure of the quality standards we've established here that ITER contacted us to hold the workshop,” said CCFE's Simon Hanks. “We look forward to strengthening our links with them in the future.”

More information on Special Techniques Group at: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/Special_Techniques.aspx

Photo: Simon Hanks (far left) with course delegates Patrick Vertongen, Ce Ye, Tommi Jokinen, Thierry Jourdan, and Chris Wilson of Special Techniques Group.

MAST Upgrade project moves to procurement stage

09/11/2011 00:00:00

The project to upgrade the MAST tokamak at CCFE continues to move forward, with the launch of the first two significant tenders for machine hardware.

Tenders for the provision of the centre tube of the vacuum vessel and the divertor power supplies have recently been published. Details can be found at http://www.uk-atomic-energy.org.uk/contracts_con_opport.html.

Further tenders will follow shortly, and by Christmas 2011 most tenders for the components on the critical path will have been issued, with contracts placed by Spring 2012.

MAST Upgrade Director Martin Cox (pictured inspecting a model of the upgrade) said: “Projects such as this involve a long journey and it is easy not to appreciate the progress as it happens. But the move from the design stage to the start of procurement is an important step for MAST Upgrade.”

Meanwhile, work is beginning at Culham to prepare the laboratory buildings and infrastructure for the upgrade of MAST. The experimental hall which houses MAST is being modified to allow for the significant engineering effort that will be needed during the project. This work includes provision of clean assembly rooms, heavy lifting equipment, tooling, alignment facility, shielding modifications and power supply enclosures.

When the project is completed in 2015, MAST's new heating and divertor systems will allow researchers to take forward the spherical tokamak research path, explore new reactor concepts and provide a bigger input into ITER preparations. Find out more at: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/MAST_upgrade.aspx.

Culham Thesis Prize 2012 - Call for Nominations

20/10/2011 00:00:00

Nominations are now being invited for the 2012 Culham Thesis prize for the best thesis in the field of plasma science.

This prize is awarded annually to the candidate who has displayed the highest degree of excellence in the execution of the scientific method as witnessed by the award of Doctor of Philosophy in plasma science from a UK or Ireland University in the last two calendar years. The thesis content should exhibit significant new work and originality, clearly driven by the nominee, be well explained and demonstrate a good understanding of the recipient's field.

The prize of £500 is supplemented by an expenses paid trip to the Institute of Physics' National Plasma Physics meeting, to be held at St Hugh's College (University of Oxford) on 2-5 April 2012, with an invited talk slot reserved for the winning entry. The winner is also requested to give a similar talk at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.

Nominations should be sent to Simon Pinches (of the IoP Plasma Physics Group Committee), at simon.pinches@ccfe.ac.uk, no later than 2 December 2011. Please remember to send all documents in triplicate, to enable rapid transmission to our three judges. Details of the award, nomination process and previous recipients are at the below link.

Please note that candidates should be members of the Institute of Physics.

More details:
http://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/pla/prize/culham/page_40815.html

Prize is Sarah's springboard into science

19/10/2011 00:00:00

Student Sarah Burge is the first winner of the new CCFE Physics Prize at King Alfred's School in Wantage.

Sarah received the prize at a presentation on 12 October for her success in achieving 100% in her GCSE Physics exam.

CCFE is sponsoring the school's annual Physics award, which includes an engraved trophy, a £25 book token and an opportunity for the winner and up to four people to visit Culham. In addition, the funds donated cover the annual purchase of a science book for the school. The winner each year will be the student who gains the highest exam marks in GCSE Physics.

King Alfred's School was judged as ‘outstanding' by Ofsted inspectors in February 2011, which ranks it in the top 10% of schools nationally. Its recent science and mathematics results have also broken all previous King Alfred's records for these subjects.

“I am delighted to win the prize. Physics is a great subject, it's very hands-on and is the basis for everything,” said Sarah, who has aspirations to study medicine. “My parents and I are really looking forward to visiting Culham and seeing the fusion research going on there.”

Head of KS4 Physics at King Alfred's School, Jonathan Gale, added: "It's fantastic for someone who works as hard as Sarah to be recognised for her efforts, and hopefully it will inspire others to follow in her footsteps," he said.

CCFE physicist Andrew Kirk, who came up with the idea for the sponsored prize, was there to present the award at a ceremony at the school. He said:

“I was pleased to go along and meet Sarah and the other students. The prize shows them that physics has real-world applications and that industry is interested in the skills they are developing in the classroom.”

MAST Update - Autumn 2011

14/10/2011 00:00:00

Machine status

The M8 experimental campaign has resumed after a month-long break to fix a fault with the solenoid coil connections. Despite this interruption, studies have been advancing in a range of fields:

H-mode scenario development;
Control of Edge Localised Mode plasma instabilities;
Low-k turbulence measurements (Electron Bernstein Wave);
Neutral Beam Current Drive and fast ion diffusion measurements;
EBW imaging measurements;
Ion energy measurements using both mid-plane and divertor retarding field energy analyzers under a range of conditions;
Density limit and detachment studies.

High-field-side fuelling system

The new controllable high-field-side (HFS) fuelling system which introduces the gas to the plasma is now being used routinely with clear benefits for H-mode access. Throughput is around ten times higher than for the original HFS fuelling system.

Diagnostics

Recent diagnostic developments include:

Installation of a spark plug impurity injector, developed by Dublin City University, on the Divertor Science Facility;
Installation of the upgraded edge Doppler spectrometer (ECELESTE) together with a fast gas valve;
Re-installation of the VUV spectrometer (SPRED) for impurity transport studies with Strathclyde University.

Culham hosts schools science quiz ‘Cup Final’

22/09/2011 00:00:00

Nearly 50 students from around England took part in the final of a national schools science quiz at Culham today.

The National Inter-School Year 5 Science Championship pitted teams from 12 schools against each other to see who knew most about science, in the race for this coveted title. The quiz was run in the style of a televised gameshow, with the show projected to a huge screen and the children (four per school team) answering questions using wireless handsets. Topics ranged from the Solar System and scientific advances in history to how the human body works.

“It's a bit like the FA Cup of primary school science,” said Amanda Blair from organisers Quiz Club. “We started off with over 20,000 children and by today's event we were down to the last 48 from the remaining 12 schools.”

After an hour of quickfire questions, the winners were Thomas' Prep School from Clapham in London (shown above receiving the trophy).

After the contest, all the competitors received a tour of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, including the UK's fusion experiment MAST, from scientists working there.

“It was a great day and we were delighted to hold the event at Culham, which is one of the UK's top science centres and the scene of exciting research into fusion power,” added Amanda Blair. “We are sure the experience will inspire many of the children to become our scientists and engineers of the future.”

CCFE Annual Report 2010/11

21/09/2011 00:00:00

CCFE has published its Annual Report for the 2010/11 financial year.

A busy year saw one of the biggest upgrades to the Joint European Torus in its history near its conclusion, carried out by CCFE engineers on behalf of EFDA-JET. The UK fusion experiment, MAST, was also enhanced with a range of new diagnostics, while preparations for the MAST-Upgrade project progressed. In addition, advances in plasma theory and modelling, materials and technology, CCFE's work for ITER and the Fusion & Industry programme are all described in the report.

A summary brochure, plus the main report with the full technical chapters, can be found at:
http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/annual_reports.aspx

In his foreword to the report, Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley says:

"It is sometimes difficult to see the scale of an organisation’s progress when you are on the inside, but it has been another hugely productive year for CCFE.

"The completion of the JET shutdown, after 81 weeks of intense in-vessel work and the installation of around 4,000 pieces of the new ITER-like Wall by remote handling, was a supreme example of the technical excellence at CCFE. Experiments to test the wall are beginning. Will JET perform better with the new wall? Is it the right choice for ITER? We will know the answer to these questions after the next few JET campaigns.

"I am also astonished by the advances in diagnosing plasmas. In the last few months we have seen the first data from the MAST Beam Emission Spectroscopy system – a diagnostic built by the Hungarian fusion association with CCFE. It produces the most gorgeous and detailed pictures of the bubbling plasma turbulence in MAST.

"As we move towards the realisation of fusion reactors, technology becomes a more important part of CCFE’s work. We are not just here to develop the science, but to make it practical and cost-effective and to help our industry prepare for a role in the future fusion economy. The evolution towards technology has been given a boost by CCFE's increasing role in developing systems for ITER and technology for the first demonstration reactor.

"The reward for all this productivity is not just a vibrant and exciting laboratory, it is also a shortening of the time to commercial fusion power – and that is, without question, progress."

New experimental campaign underway at JET

02/09/2011 00:00:00

Today at Culham, scientists from throughout Europe start the first experimental campaign at JET after the installation of the 'ITER-Like Wall'. The upgrade comprises new materials inside the JET vessel, more heating power and additional diagnostic systems.

The research is coordinated under the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA). EFDA Leader Francesco Romanelli commented: “This is probably the largest effort that has been put into JET apart from the construction of the machine itself. With the expertise and contribution of many fusion laboratories, the JET team has succeeded in building a small ITER. We had a very good start with high purity plasmas readily established in ITER relevant conditions – a promising sign for the use of these wall materials in ITER.”

The inside of the JET vessel is now made of beryllium and tungsten tiles. Between October 2009 and May 2011 engineers from Culham Centre for Fusion Energy removed and replaced approximately 86,000 components, largely using remote handling technology.

Lorne Horton, Head of EFDA’s JET Department, explained: “The coming experiments will aim to verify that the wall materials chosen for ITER will behave as expected.” Beryllium is being used in the main wall, whereas tungsten, with its high melting point, is the choice for the exhaust component known as ‘divertor’ that has to withstand high heat flux.

The other main enhancement is a 50% increase in the heating power. With the extra power, JET will achieve higher plasma temperatures and approach ITER conditions. New diagnostics and control systems, developed by the EFDA associate laboratories, will allow a deep investigation of the scientific challenges in preparing for ITER.

Maximos Tsalas (pictured left) is one of the visiting scientists in the control room. He has worked for many years at JET and has recently moved to FOM Rijnhuizen, in The Netherlands. He explained: "I left JET more than a year ago. Coming back, the developments I see are amazing. JET has become a brand new machine. I feel extremely privileged to take part in the first set of experiments. The coming campaign will be very challenging, and we are all eager to see how the new systems perform and to learn how to operate with the new wall."

JET will be progressively brought up to full power to allow a proper investigation of the ITER materials under conditions approaching those of ITER.

Francesco Romanelli (right) looks positively to the future: “We have plans to use the deuterium-tritium fusion fuel mix of ITER in 2015, to allow full exploitation of JET’s new capabilities. We hope to set new performance records and provide the best possible preparation for ITER.”

First plasma on 'new' JET

25/08/2011 00:00:00

After the installation of over 4000 new tiles and 22 months since the last experiment, yesterday evening saw the first plasma pulse run on the upgraded JET tokamak.

A crowded JET Control Room, with an expected air of excitement, witnessed a spectacular 1 Mega Amp plasma develop and last for 15 seconds. This was a remarkable achievement for the vacuum vessel with its new ITER-like wall – a typical first plasma after an engineering shutdown usually appears as a brief flash of light lasting less than a second.

EFDA Leader Francesco Romanelli paid tribute to all those involved in preparing the machine for operations:

"Yesterday was a significant day for the worldwide fusion programme, with JET producing the first plasma with the new ITER-like wall installed.

We hadn’t expected that we would get such an excellent result immediately after commissioning. This very promising step has been accomplished but much more is on our agenda. I would like to congratulate all those who made all this possible.”

Photo details
Scientists and engineers gathered in the JET Control Room (24/08/11: 18.29) with the first plasma visible on the lower central monitor.

“This is only a first step but a very important and hopeful one in the exploitation of the JET machine in ITER-like wall configuration,” said Tim Jones, CCFE's Head of Machine Operations Division. “Looking ahead, the start of the first experimental campaign is scheduled for a few days after the August Bank Holiday.”

What happens during a JET restart?

23/08/2011 00:00:00

With the beginning of the next experimental campaign getting close, CCFE engineer Damian Brennan explains the work that goes into restarting JET after a major shutdown.

After an 18-month upgrade, the restart is a complex process. Staff from CCFE, responsible for the operation of the JET device, have been working closely with their colleagues from the European Fusion Development Agreement to get the facilities ready.

The installation of the ITER-like Wall inside JET means that this restart is different from usual. The machine systems are normally commissioned before the handing over of the machine to the JET scientific Task Forces, and this would include plasma cleaning or conditioning of the wall tiles. This time, the new wall means that the first plasma run with the beryllium and tungsten tiles is actually the first experiment. This is due to the need to study erosion and migration of beryllium and tungsten, starting with the clean, unspoilt tiles as they were installed. It is a crucial opportunity which researchers will only get once.

Find out more in this video.

Science Vale UK named as Enterprise Zone

17/08/2011 00:00:00

More than 8,000 new jobs are heading for Oxfordshire's Science Vale UK area after the Government named it as one of ten new Enterprise Zones across the UK.

Science Vale UK is a joint initiative between leading hi-tech and research organisations in south Oxfordshire and local councils to promote the region. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, which runs Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, is one of the partners in Science Vale UK, and Authority CEO Professor Steve Cowley is Chair of Science Vale UK. In addition, Harwell Oxford, one of the business parks included in the zone, is being developed as part of a joint venture involving the Authority.

The successful bid made by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) envisages 200,000 square metres of development delivered by the private sector by 2015.

This is expected to bring in around 8,400 high-tech, high-value-adding jobs and generate up to £10.5m of additional business rates a year. These funds can be directly reinvested into the Oxfordshire economy.

The zone will consist of land at two of the UK's biggest science and research business parks – Harwell Oxford and Milton Park – with the single ambition of being globally competitive to the benefit of Oxfordshire and the UK.

New businesses will benefit from over £1bn of business rate discounts over five years, simplified planning procedures and access to super-fast broadband.

Harwell Oxford Director, Dr Sally Ann Forsyth, said: “This is just the boost that Science Vale UK needs to continue its legacy as one of the world's leading locations for research and the commercialisation of science. It's the perfect place to be for space research, bio-technology, cryogenics and advanced manufacturing.”

Key business leaders will work with Science Vale UK Chair Professor Cowley, Government, Oxfordshire County Council and the Vale of the White Horse District Council to make the development a reality.

For more information see the Science Vale UK website.

Mike’s laser quest recalled in new book

04/08/2011 00:00:00

A dramatic Cold War mission to Moscow, a close encounter with Colonel Gaddafi, and the quest to build a man-made Sun…it was all in a day's work for retired Culham scientist Dr Mike Forrest.

All of this and more are described in Mike's memoirs, Lasers Across the Cherry Orchards, which have just been published. The book tells the story of his 50-year career in nuclear fusion.

And the book has the backing of no less than Tony Benn, the former Labour MP who was Energy Secretary in the 1970s. Mr Benn telephoned Mike to discuss the book and later sent him a note: “your book about international cooperation with the Russians on nuclear fusion is of great interest – I hope it attracts a wide readership.”

“My life as a scientist started in 1957 on one of the world's first fusion experiments, ZETA at Harwell, progressing through to the European JET machine which is still taking the science forward today at Culham,” said Mike Forrest. “Along the way I worked with the Libyans, Italians, Portuguese and Swedes on their fusion programmes and was part of a groundbreaking trip to Moscow to work with my Soviet counterparts at the height of the Cold War. A long way from the Welsh valley I grew up in.”

It was the 1969 Moscow expedition that Mike – an expert in laser measurements – singles out as a highlight. A team from Culham, the home of the UK's fusion programme, went to validate the results of a new machine developed by the Russians, the ‘tokamak', which was to revolutionise the fusion field. Mike's laser diagnostic system accurately measured temperatures of over 10 million degrees Celsius inside the T3 tokamak. This confirmed that a giant step forward had indeed been made in achieving the conditions needed for fusion energy, opening the way for larger tokamaks such as JET to be built and the path to fusion power stations to be mapped out.

The trip – highly unusual at the time – was specially sanctioned by the UK Government because of the importance of the work.

“It was a fascinating glimpse behind the Iron Curtain,” Mike remembers. “The local Communist Party treated us to trips to the Moscow State Circus, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kremlin – but the KGB were always there in the background. However, the overall memory was the general kindness of the Russian people.”

Mike is still in demand even in retirement, and is currently acting as an adviser to ITER, a giant international project that will be the successor to JET and the stepping stone to commercial fusion power.

Mike's memoirs have attracted the interest of the British Library, which is conducting a series of interviews with him for its Oral History of British Science. An archive containing recordings with around 200 UK scientists, it aims to increase the public's understanding of science and the people behind the technological advances that shape our world.

Dr Thomas Lean from the British Library, who has been interviewing Mike Forrest for the archive project, said:

“Mike has an amazing story. I was lucky enough to join him for a visit to Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which gave me an insight into the work he's been describing. Seeing the JET and MAST experiments there really brought it alive and will help us to convey the atmosphere in the archive recordings.”

'Lasers Across the Cherry Orchards' is published by Tandem Press and can be ordered at: www.mjforrest.co.uk.

Photographs:

(Top) Dr Mike Forrest at Culham
(Middle) Mike Forrest working on laser diagnostics in 1964
(Bottom) Mike with Dr Thomas Lean of the British Library at Culham's MAST fusion experiment

MAST Update - Summer 2011

01/08/2011 00:00:00

Machine status

MAST's 2011 experimental campaign is now well underway. Despite some technical problems and limited high power neutral beam heating operation, progress has been made in a number of areas.

Recent experiments

First data have been obtained from several new diagnostics including beam emission spectroscopy (developed in collaboration with RMKI Hungary), neutron emission (developed in collaboration with Uppsala University), fast ion D-alpha emission and electron Bernstein wave imaging (collaboration with the University of York).

Experimental studies carried out so far include disruption mitigation (in collaboration with FZJ Germany), ion energy measurements with both mid-plane and divertor retarding field energy analyzers (collaboration with IPP Garching and CEA Cadarache), current profile evolution measurements and effects of resonant magnetic perturbations including edge localised mode mitigation using n = 6 perturbations. Progress has also been made on optimisation of error field compensation and H-mode scenario development.

A number of activities in support of the MAST Upgrade project have also been pursued on MAST, including tests of a modified toroidal field sliding joint design, vertical position control model validation and fast amplifier performance tests.

The TAE (Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmode) antenna drive has been increased by an order of magnitude and following initial tests on a single coil the MAST team is now ready to power up six TAE coils simultaneously. These experiments will resume in August.

Transfer of ECRH heating equipment

Dismantling of the 60GHz ECRH systems, which will be deployed on J-TEXT in China, is well-advanced. Four representatives from Huazhong University visited Culham 13-17 June to witness part of the dismantling activities.

Putting the cold into fusion

28/07/2011 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley was one of the speakers at the recent ‘100 Years of Superconductivity' event at the Royal Society in London.

The event celebrated the advances made since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' discovery of superconductivity in 1911. Organised by Oxford Instruments – one of the leading industrial exponents of this technology – and the Institute of Physics, it was attended by an audience of science and business leaders.

Professor Cowley described the importance of superconductivity in fusion, with particular reference to ITER, which will use superconducting magnets at extremely low temperatures to achieve maximum efficiency and limit energy consumption.

Other talks focused on the history and development of the technology and its medical applications, with speakers from Oxford University, the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging and Oxford Instruments.

Watch Steve Cowley's talk courtesy of Oxford Instruments' YouTube channel:

More on the event at: http://www.oxford-instruments.com/Lists/Bulletins/DispBulletin.aspx?id=57

The music of MAST

25/07/2011 00:00:00

They may sound like whale cries, but the strange noises emitted inside the MAST tokamak can actually help CCFE scientists to detect plasma instabilities.

A fusion plasma is anything but quiet, exhibiting a whole cacophony of sounds more reminiscent of a TV wildlife programme than a scientific experiment. By slowing down the signal from a magnetic pickup coil in the MAST vessel (by a factor of 20), the high-frequency fluctuations caused by various plasma instabilities can be shifted into the audible range. Similar audio material has also been produced on JET for a number of years.

There is a serious purpose behind producing these unusual soundtracks, as Dr Anthony Field, of CCFE's Spectroscopy, Transport, Edge & Magnetics Group, explains:
"The performance of tokamaks like MAST can be affected by a range of magnetic phenomena that make the plasma unstable. Playing the sounds back after an experiment can give us instant feedback on which instabilities have formed during the plasma pulse. After a while you learn to detect which ones are which!"

Click here to hear the sounds of a MAST plasma (opens as an audio file).

What you can hear during the pulse:

The initial screech is generated by the fast ions from the heating beams driving vibrations of the toroidal magnetic field.
As the pressure of these ions builds up, whooping sounds due to so-called 'fishbone' instabilities are generated as the plasma distorts helically, in turn expelling some of the fast ions.
Lower tenor notes can be heard from 'tearing mode' instabilities (known as Neo-classical Tearing Modes) driven by the plasma pressure.
The final harsh note which sweeps down in frequency is a helical kink instability which tilts the rotating plasma core and causes breaking of the plasma rotation.

The image above is a graphical representation of the instabilities in the sound recording, showing changes in frequency over the lifetime of a MAST plasma pulse.

View from the top

15/07/2011 00:00:00

UK Prime Minister David Cameron toured the former Culham fusion experiment COMPASS during a recent visit to Prague.

Mr Cameron went to the Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) with his Czech counterpart Petr Necas as part of discussions on strengthening research links between the two countries.

COMPASS is a good example of UK-Czech scientific partnerships. It was one of Culham's key experimental devices in the 1990s and contributed to the design of the international ITER tokamak before being closed in 2001, when the new MAST machine became the focus of UK fusion research. In 2007, COMPASS was moved to IPP, where it has been assembled, upgraded and recommissioned as a facility for Czech fusion scientists and engineers.

The two Prime Ministers received briefings from IPP researchers, taking a keen interest in the prospects for fusion and how the Czech programme will feed into the ITER project.

The photograph shows Head of Tokamak research at IPP Prague Radomir Panek, British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Necas on a viewing platform above COMPASS – image courtesy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Star physics pupil visits plant for fuel of the future

14/07/2011 00:00:00

National prize-winning student Abigail Davies visited Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Oxfordshire on Tuesday 12 July to learn how researchers are working towards recreating the activity of the Sun here on Earth to create a plentiful, clean fuel source for our future.

As winner of the Institute of Physics’ Prize in the Big Bang Fair – the UK’s biggest science and engineering event for young people – for her impressive project, which involved using a school seismometer to show how local sea states also affect seismic noise, Abi received £500 and an exclusive tour around the research site.

Abi, a former pupil at Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester in Dorset and now a geophysics student at the University of Liverpool, was given a tour of the European JET facility – the largest fusion experiment in the world – and the UK’s own fusion device, MAST.

Abi said, “I’d learnt the basics of nuclear fusion at A-level but seeing the construction of the plant in action was really fascinating. The researchers have to be so precise and accurate in everything they work on, yet it’s being built on such a huge scale. JET was so much bigger than I had expected.”

Since victory in March, Abi has been continuing her geophysics degree at the University of Liverpool, and says that her success at the Big Bang Fair and this subsequent trip to Culham have encouraged her to continue pursuing a career in scientific research.

Abi said, “I love finding things out that no one has thought of before. I can’t imagine a more exciting career.”

Abigail fought off stiff competition from 155 other entries to win the prize at the Big Bang Fair. Having received notes of congratulation from senior staff at her University and her home constituency MP, Oliver Letwin, Abi seems set on course for the career of her dreams.

Joana Silva, CCFE Education and Outreach Manager, said, “It was a pleasure to welcome Abi to CCFE and show her around the facilities. It was great to see that Abi was so interested in the scientific process, as we are keen to encourage young people like her to go into a career in physics. It is also very rewarding for us to be involved with the IOP’s Prize for Physics.”

Beth Taylor, Director of Communications at IOP, said, “Visiting the physics projects at the Big Bang Fair this year was a wonderful experience - it was great to see so many keen young competitors but Abi's project stood out for its interesting mix of data collection and interpretation, and for Abi's personal enthusiasm and initiative.

“I'm delighted she had the opportunity to visit Culham and see the fusion facilities there - this is an area of physics where UK science is genuinely leading the world, and I am very grateful to staff at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy for making her visit possible.”

Professor Steven Cowley appointed to Government Council for Science and Technology

29/06/2011 00:00:00

Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed Professor Steven Cowley, CEO of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, as a member of the Council for Science and Technology.

The Council for Science and Technology is the UK Government's top-level advisory body on science and technology policy issues. It is made up of figures from senior levels in science and engineering fields from industry, business and academia, and reports directly to the Prime Minister.

Steven Cowley is a theoretical physicist who has been CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority since 2009. The Authority operates Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which is developing nuclear fusion as a large-scale, low-carbon energy source for the future.

Before joining the Authority, Steven Cowley was a professor at the University of California Los Angeles and led the plasma physics group at Imperial College, London, where he remains a part-time professor. He has published over 140 papers and articles during his scientific career.

Professor Keith Burnett, a Board member of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, has also been appointed to the Council for Science and Technology.

Professor Steven Cowley said: “The quality of the UK's science and technology is second to none and our future prosperity depends it. I am honoured to serve on a Council dedicated to enhancing UK science and technology.”

Announcing the appointment of new Council members, David Cameron said: “We have some of the world’s best scientists, leading technologies, cutting edge facilities and the most innovative hi-tech companies, and it is our determination that we do all that we can to ensure the UK remains one of the world leaders in this field. That is why I am delighted that I can announce the appointment of such a high calibre team, with such a broad range of experience, to the Council for Science and Technology.”

Neutral beam video is hot stuff

23/06/2011 00:00:00

This new video gives a rare view inside one of the powerful neutral beam injectors that are used to heat fusion plasmas.

Taken from the EFDA-JET Neutral Beam Test Bed at Culham, it shows a composite beam of neutral hydrogen atoms and ions emerging from a Positive Ion Neutral Injector (PINI).

Neutral beams are used to fuel and heat plasmas in tokamaks like JET and MAST by firing in fast atoms which collide and transfer their energy to the background plasma nuclei. This happens in two stages. Firstly, a beam of energetic ions is produced by applying an accelerating voltage of up to 140,000 Volts. However, a beam of charged ions will not be able to penetrate the confining magnetic field in the tokamak. Thus, the second stage ensures the accelerated beams are neutralised (i.e. the ions turned into neutral atoms) before injection into the plasma. In JET, up to 35MW of power is now available from the neutral beam heating systems following the recent machine upgrades.

In the video above, light is first seen from the hot glowing filaments of the source that produce the ions to be extracted. The beam itself then appears, its visibility caused by the excitation of the background hydrogen gas. It travels at high speed through the 12-metre Test Bed at power densities of up to 250MW/m².

The Neutral Beam Test Bed is a replica of a JET neutral injector box and is used to condition and characterise PINIs before they are installed on the tokamak itself.

For more on plasma heating on JET, see the EFDA-JET website.

See JET upgraded in five minutes

13/06/2011 00:00:00

A new video on the EFDA-JET website shrinks 20 months of JET upgrade work into less than five minutes.

JET is now being prepared for its next set of fusion experiments after the completion of extensive engineering modifications. The video gives an insight into the amount of work that was carried out to upgrade the machine during the shutdown period.

Around 32,000 still images were taken from a camera mounted inside the machine hall over the course of the shutdown. The combined images make up this fascinating time-lapse sequenced movie.

Watch the video on the EFDA-JET website.

New insights into MAST plasma turbulence

07/06/2011 00:00:00

These are the first images of turbulence in the core of a plasma inside MAST – made possible by a diagnostic system recently developed by CCFE and colleagues in Hungary.

Keeping plasma stable within the magnetic field inside a tokamak will be essential for fusion energy production. Turbulence can threaten this stability, creating irregular fluctuations in the movement of particles from the plasma's core to its edge, which cause unwanted energy losses. Getting a clear picture of the turbulence is therefore essential in understanding and mitigating it for future devices.

The 2D Beam Emission Spectroscopy (BES) system measures turbulence in MAST by detecting the light emitted when beams of neutral atoms are injected into the plasma to heat it. The diagnostic's very high time resolution allows fusion researchers to map the evolution of turbulent structures at small scales. The four images above demonstrate this – showing fluctuations in the density of the plasma at 5 microsecond intervals.

The measurements will be invaluable to physicists at CCFE and at UK universities who are modelling the performance of plasmas for next-generation tokamaks such as ITER. The BES system is producing experimental data against which plasma simulations can be compared to verify the assumptions in these models.

The diagnostic was developed in collaboration between Culham and RMKI in Budapest, Hungary and was installed during MAST's 2010 engineering shutdown.

“Such images of turbulence in the core of the plasma are only available in a very few fusion experiments worldwide,” said CCFE's Anthony Field, who designed the system. “Culham has been leading the way in theoretical work on turbulence, but we will now be able to compare these simulations directly with results from MAST for the first time.”

The energy of Science Vale UK

02/06/2011 00:00:00

An event at Culham Science Centre last week showcased the exciting energy R&D work happening in south Oxfordshire.

In his keynote presentation, Professor Sir Christopher Llewellyn-Smith FRS (Oxford University) set the context for the event, organised by Science Vale UK. The world needs to develop new sources of energy, notably nuclear fusion and solar, as well as new ways of storing that energy and using it efficiently. Research organisations and technology companies in Science Vale UK are at the leading edge of much of this work. A wide range of these organisations shared their knowledge, expertise and views at what proved to be a lively mini-conference.

Science, research and industry experts led thematic sessions covering fusion technology, renewable energy technology and energy in buildings - giving real insight into how businesses are collaborating with research organisations to bring new technologies to market, the contribution and commercial opportunities of emerging energy-related technologies and the benefits of the Science Vale UK and wider Oxfordshire ‘cluster' of [energy-related] organisations.

Early feedback on the event has been very positive, particularly in relation to new connections. Professor Nic Harrison (STFC/Imperial College), who led the Renewable Energy Technologies session, commented that his was “an enthusiastic session considering renewable energy technologies and the global challenges of energy supply and climate change. A number of interesting opportunities for Science Vale UK emerged from general discussions of wind, marine and solar energy technologies.”. Dr Derek Stork (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy) said “the message of our [Fusion Technology and Industry] session was that, irrespective of the size of firm, everyone in the high tech design, R&D and manufacturing sector can benefit from the immediate business opportunities...and success would drive business capability improvement.”

Exhibitors ranged from world-leading science and research organisations, such as the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and Diamond Light Source Ltd, to specialist developers and producers of energy- related products, including Oxis Energy (with their Lithium battery expertise).

After the event, Professor Steve Cowley, Chief Executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and Chair of the Science Vale UK Partnership commented that “The meeting was just excellent. The goals of Science Vale UK clearly resonate with the local business community.”

For more information on Science Vale UK please see www.sciencevale.com.

JET restart programme begins

18/05/2011 00:00:00

Restart activities began today following one of the most complex engineering shutdowns in JET's history.

The machine was restarted this morning by switching on systems to begin the pumpdown of the vacuum vessel and neutral injection boxes. This is the first milestone of a complex and challenging process of re-commissioning numerous safety, protection, control, heating and diagnostic systems. In addition, many of the new machine upgrades have to be commissioned, in particular the 'ITER-like Wall' with related protection and Neutral Beam heating enhancements. Pictured right is detail from the new wall inside JET.

The restart programme will aim to achieve the first plasma on the 'new' JET in late Summer/early Autumn. Researchers from around Europe will then begin to assess plasma behaviour using the new beryllium-tungsten combination of inner wall materials, important for the future success of ITER.

Green fingers and green energy

17/05/2011 00:00:00

A science garden supported by CCFE has won a top horticultural award. The ‘In the Balance’ garden, based on the atom, was created to mark the UNESCO International Year of Chemistry 2011.

Designer Caroline Butler won a scholarship from TV gardener Chris Beardshaw for the display at the recent Malvern Spring Gardening Show, which will enable her to exhibit at next year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

The design aimed to stimulate enquiry into scientific ideas and describe the atom in a simplistic visual way that would be accessible to all. Culham Centre for Fusion Energy was pleased to provide Caroline, who is based in nearby Henley, with financial support for the project from its sponsorship fund.

Jennifer Hay of the CCFE Communications Team was there to see the award being made and explains: “This was a different community project for CCFE to sponsor but one which fitted in well with our broad remit of enthusing the public about science,” said Jennifer. “The show attracts over 90,000 visitors year, so it was a great way to get science across to people. Caroline's win was an extra bonus that gave her garden even further publicity.”

More details at: http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=912471

MAST Update - Spring 2011

13/05/2011 00:00:00

Machine status

MAST is now back in operation. Restart activities are almost complete and the main physics programme will soon be underway. Calibrations of magnetics diagnostics and gas injection systems have been completed. The toroidal field coil sliding joints have been ‘bedded in' and initial measurements on new MAST Upgrade-type joints have been taken. Good progress has been made on plasma operation for vessel conditioning.

Visiting collaborators from the University of Tokyo obtained magnetic reconnection data during the ‘merging-compression' start-up phase of these discharges. The disruption mitigation valve has also been tested successfully.

Start-up preparations

The upgraded Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) control systems have been commissioned and NBI getter-pumping tests have been carried out to provide key input to the MAST-U NBI design - specifically on the choice between getter- and cryo-pumps for the Upgrade's Double Beam Box. Conditioning of the injectors is underway – to date both injectors have been operated up to 45kV, 1s.

Assuming that conditioning proceeds efficiently, high-power MAST experiments should begin in June, although it is planned to conduct some Ohmic/low power experiments in parallel with NBI conditioning activities in May. The 2011 campaign (M8) is presently scheduled to run until the end of September.

Other news

Preparations are being made for dismantling of the 60GHz ECRH systems, originally deployed on COMPASS-D, for shipment to China and eventual deployment on J-TEXT at Huazhong University.

Inside the new JET

09/05/2011 00:00:00

This is how the inside of JET looks after installation of the 'ITER-like Wall' of around 4,500 tiles by CCFE's remote handling engineers. The project will allow researchers at JET to test the interaction of the fusion plasma and the plasma-facing materials, with the same beryllium-tungsten combination that the next-generation ITER tokamak will use. This will provide crucial verification of the performance of these materials for ITER. The 18-month 'Enhancement Programme 2' engineering upgrade is rapidly approaching completion and activities to prepare JET for restart will begin shortly.

First MAST Upgrade machine hardware arrives at Culham

26/04/2011 00:00:00

A milestone in the project to upgrade the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) was reached earlier this month when the first machine component for the upgrade was delivered to Culham.

Pictured is the new ‘PINI' (Positive Ion Neutral Injector), which has been purchased as a complete system. It will provide an extra 2.5 megawatts of power to heat the plasma inside MAST when the upgrade is complete in 2015. More importantly, the PINI will give CCFE researchers greater flexibility in the way they use neutral beam heating on MAST.

Neutral beam heating is one of the main methods used to reach the high temperatures needed for fusion plasmas inside tokamaks. It works by injecting beams of high-energy, neutral atoms which collide with the ions and electrons in the plasma. The neutral atoms transfer their energy into the plasma and increase its temperature.

The PINI is the heating source that injects the neutral beams. Positive hydrogen ions are produced in a filament-driven discharge in the ion source before being accelerated up to 75 kilovolts. The high-energy particle beam is then neutralised before being fired out of the beamline and into the plasma.

Two PINIs are currently used on MAST but the new third PINI – as well as providing more heating power – will enable different areas of the plasma to be heated. This will help scientists to investigate ways of keeping the plasma stable inside the tokamak's magnetic chamber. Instabilities at the core of the plasma cause energy to be lost and the plasma to be extinguished. The extra beamline will mean that physicists can target neutral beam heating at the outer part of the plasma with a view to reducing these instabilities.

The neutral beam improvements will be just one part of the £30 million MAST Upgrade project, which will keep the UK at the forefront of international fusion research and advance the development of the spherical tokamak as a compact fusion source.

Tom Barrett, Contract Project Manager for the PINI, who is shown carrying out electrical testing on the equipment, said:

“It's exciting to see the first visible mechanical parts for MAST Upgrade here on site. We're very happy with the manufacture of the PINI – it's a difficult system to build, as some features have to be accurate to 10µm, about a tenth of the width of a human hair. We can now start conditioning the PINI so that it will be ready to support MAST experiments when the upgrade is complete.”

At Culham, the fire of the sun is already burning

19/04/2011 00:00:00

Major German newspaper The Rheinische Post has published an article on the research at Culham.

The story, headlined "Hier brennt bereits das Sonnenfeuer" ("Here, the fire of the sun is already burning") can be viewed at the following link:

http://www.rp-online.de/wissen/technik/Hier-brennt-bereits-das-Sonnenfeuer_aid_988064.html

Alexei Makartsev, the newspaper's UK Correspondent, visited CCFE earlier this month and interviewed German physicist Mathias Brix, who showed him around JET, before finding out about MAST with UK fusion scientist Andrew Kirk.

The piece provides a good account of the technology behind fusion, the advantages and potential of fusion as an energy source, and the challenges involved in getting it into commercial power stations. "There is a place in England where the sun always shines - at the touch of a button, for about 30 seconds," writes Makartsev. "Many experts see a great future for the high-tech power from the sun's fire."

Lydia wins apprentice award

30/03/2011 00:00:00

CCFE apprentice Lydia Feasey has been named the Engineering Trust's '1st Year Apprentice of the Year'.

The Engineering Trust is a charity that promotes engineering apprenticeships in collaboration with its operating subsidiary ISIS Training Group. The Trust holds an annual apprentices awards event, which this year took place at the Enterprise Centre at Marlborough School, Woodstock, earlier this month.

In addition to Lydia's success, another CCFE apprentice, Tom West, was runner-up for the Apprentice of the Year award in the 2nd Year category. The citations for both apprentices were very strong, noting their commitment to their training as well as their work ethic and high personal standards.

CCFE runs a four-year training programme for apprentices in conjunction with a local college, which provides an excellent foundation for young people to develop a career in engineering. For more details please see: http://www.culhamapprenticeshipscheme.com

Culham fusion researcher strikes gold with science in Parliament

22/03/2011 00:00:00

Dr Ian Chapman, a young researcher at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, struck gold at a competition in the House of Commons for the excellence of his scientific research last week.

Ian presented his physics research to more than one hundred politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of SET for Britain, on Monday 14 March.

His research shows how physicists at Culham are helping to develop a clean, long-term energy source via nuclear fusion, which involves heating fuel to temperatures over 100 million degrees Celsius and using magnets to control the incredibly hot plasma. It was judged against 29 other shortlisted physicists' work.

On winning Gold and the £3,000 prize, Ian said: “I'm shocked and flattered! I really don't feel like this is a prize for me, but rather recognition of the importance of fusion research and the exceptional work that is being done at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.”

SET for Britain is a competition in the House of Commons which involves researchers displaying posters of their work to panels of expert judges and more than 100 MPs.

Ellen Williams, Chief Scientist, BP, who sponsored the £3,000 Gold medal, said: “I'm extremely impressed by the ideas I have seen and the young budding scientists I have met tonight. For companies like BP, that are involved in tackling hugely complex energy issues, science plays an ever more important role.

“So it's fantastic to see some of the UK's best new research talent all in one room and with one common objective: to ensure science plays a critical role in addressing the major challenges we face.”

On the event, Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, President of the Institute of Physics, said: "It's never been so important that politicians have a solid grasp of physics, and that's why SET for Britain is such a valuable event. Advances in physics underpin our daily existence, from the physics in the GPS we use to drive to work to the physics behind the electricity which powers our homes. All of the presenters here today deserve our praise and admiration for tackling such worthy work."

The event aims to help politicians understand more about the UK's thriving science base and rewards some of the strongest scientific research being undertaken in the UK.

Professor Brian Cox, TV star physicist, who visited the event to meet the researchers and present the Westminster Medal, awarded to the overall winner, said: “It's been amazing to see the range of work on display, you can't help but feel assured that science and engineering are going to provide answers to the UK's most pressing concerns, from climate change to cyber security.

“Most importantly of all, these young researchers will continue to explore nature. Driven by their curiosity and skill, who knows what they will discover?

“Politicians take note; the researchers here today are this country's future. It is your job to ensure that Britain is the best place in the world for them to continue their research."

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee ran the event in collaboration with The Royal Academy of Engineering, The Institute of Physics, the Society of Biology, The Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society of Chemical Industry, with financial support from BP, E.ON, plantimpact, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, International Agri-Technology Centre Ltd, AgChem Access, Eli Lilly and Oxford Instruments.

Dr Ian Chapman is shown receiving his award from Ellen Williams, Chief Scientist, BP, who sponsored the GoldMedal (left), and Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, President of the Institute of Physics (right).

You can hear an interview with Dr Ian Chapman on Oxfordshire radio station JACK fm at the link below:

Ian Chapman JACK fm, Sunday 27 March - MP3 file (9.5MB)

An infusion of news from CCFE

21/03/2011 00:00:00

The world-class fusion research at Culham Centre for Fusion Energyis being showcased in a new bi-annual publication InFusion, which is launched today.

Beginning with a welcome from Head of CCFE, Professor Steve Cowley, InFusion is a feature-based magazine aimed at highlighting key projects and news from Culham.

“It's very exciting to be launching this new publication today,” said InFusion Editor, Susan Hayward. “I would like to thank all those who have contributed to its production and I hope that readers enjoy the features and keeping up date with the research here at CCFE.”

“I also look forward to receiving comments and ideas for the next edition, which is due in autumn 2011.”

InFusion is designed and printed in-house by Culham Publication Services.

Download the first issue (PDF file), featuring articles on:

All change for JET – retiling the world's largest fusion machine
The ‘Super-X' factor – progress on the MAST Upgrade project
The heat is on – how CCFE has successfully bid for ITER design contracts
Sharing knowledge; CCFE's relationship with UK universities has never been stronger.

News items include:

Launch of the world's first global tokamak experiment
Opportunity knocks for UK industry
Why the Sun Dome outreach activity is still shining after 500 shows
David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science visits CCFE.

For a paper copy please contact Susan Hayward on 01235 466363.

It's CSI Abingdon at schools science fair

18/03/2011 00:00:00

Pupils had a go at being forensic Crime Scene Investigators when they visited the Abingdon Schools Science Fair, supported by CCFE, on Thursday 17 March.

Around 600 children from 14 Abingdon schools took part in the event. The theme of the fair was ‘Material World' and as well as detective games using fingerprints and chromatography, the students explored nanotechnology and got their hands on volcanic rock and space sand. Pupils from nine of the schools exhibited their own science projects and there was a talk about ‘Balloons and Blast-off' by Sian Owen from Oxford University's Physics Department.

Joana Silva, Education and Outreach Manager at Culham, said:

"The fair is a great event to enthuse children with science and the world around them. This is an event very much focussed on the pupils; they developed their own scientific experiments and presented them to other pupils, and this is what science is all about. We were very happy to be involved with the fair and encourage pupils to see science in a different light."

Pictured is Adam Wermann, aged 11, from the Unicorn School, trying his hand at detective work at the science fair.

MAST diagnostics better than ever for new experiments

15/03/2011 00:00:00

The MAST tokamak is preparing to restart experiments with an improved suite of plasma diagnostics.

Since April 2010, CCFE, in conjunction with a number of partner laboratories and universities, has installed a range of new and upgraded diagnostic instruments for measuring fusion plasmas in MAST. These include:

Neutron camera - for mapping the neutron emission profile in the plasma (with Uppsala University, Sweden);
Fast ion D-alpha system - looking at the distribution of fast ions;
Beam emission spectroscopy - measuring plasma turbulence (with RMKI, Hungary);
Microwave imaging system - determining the current at the edge of the plasma (with the University of York);
Edge Doppler spectroscopy system - producing measurements that aid understanding of plasma confinement properties;
Retarding Field Energy Analysers - measuring the temperature of ions leaving the plasma (with Liverpool University).

The new equipment will give scientists at MAST even more detailed information on plasma properties and phenomena - essential in planning for future fusion devices like ITER.

Take a tour of the diagnostics in this video with CCFE physicist Dr Neil Conway, who talks us through the upgrades and explains what they are designed to achieve.

Technology & Innovation Exhibition at Culham

11/03/2011 00:00:00

Now in its tenth year at Culham, the Technology & Innovation Exhibition - organised by Nu-Tech Associates - looks set to attract a bumper number of exhibitors and visitors again on Tuesday 10 May. Having seen around 30 different exhibiting companies at the event in 2010, the early signs for 2011 already suggest that this year will be just as busy, with the exhibition bookings already showing a high occupancy rate.

The aim of the Technology & Innovation Exhibition is to enable both existing and potentially new suppliers an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities directly to potential customers on the site.

“There’s been a positive level of interest in the exhibition so far this year and we are hopeful that we will have as many companies, if not more, on display in 2011,” commented Lisa Jones-Taylor from Nu-Tech.

Among those so far who weren’t in attendance last year but intend to exhibit in 2011 will be BAE Systems (Engineering Integrated Solutions Division), Hima-Sella Ltd, Staubli Ltd, UHV Design, Aish Technologies Ltd, Roxtec Ltd, Assystem, Centronic Ltd, Plansee SE, Laser Components Ltd and Fischer Connectors Ltd.

With much on offer for visitors to see, it is hoped that 2011 will be as busy as ever with staff seeking to identify solutions to their problems and find suppliers who might be able to offer cheaper, faster or more reliable products.

As before, the exhibition will be held in a purpose-built, fully serviced marquee opposite the Culham Conference Centre.

There are still spaces left for more exhibitors, so for further details contact: Nu-Tech Associates Ltd - Tel: 01946 695554, Email: sales@nu-techassoc.co.uk.

The CCFE Pedal Power Challenge

28/02/2011 00:00:00

The 2011 Oxfordshire Science Festival began on Saturday 26 February with a launch event – 'Science In Your World' – at Bonn Square in Oxford, demonstrating a variety of hands-on science activities, including a stand from Culham.

CCFE staff were there demonstrating the physics behind fusion, and asking people to experience at first-hand how much electricity you can generate by riding a bicycle, with a 'Pedal Power Challenge' designed by our apprentice engineers. Pictured is Chris Warrick of CCFE's Communications Group trying out the bike.

The Pedal Power Challenge will be in action again at Culham on Red Nose Day (Friday 18 March) as staff raise money for Comic Relief.

Culham Innovation Centre celebrates tenth anniversary

18/02/2011 00:00:00

Senior representatives from the business, technology and research communities gathered at Culham on Thursday 17 February to celebrate the key role played by Culham Innovation Centre in supporting the growth of innovative companies over the past ten years.

The tenth anniversary was marked by a special networking event including presentations from Chris Allington, managing director of Oxford Innovation's business and innovation centres division, and Keith Errey, co-founder of Toumaz Technology and a serial entrepreneur who has recently launched Isansys Lifecare, a provider of real-time physiological patient data acquisition systems and services.

The Innovation Centre, located in the heart of the Culham site, is one of a network of 15 facilities managed by Oxford Innovation, a leading operator of business and innovation centres.

The centre provides office and laboratory space on flexible terms for innovative start-up companies in sectors ranging from space transportation to software development and automotive technology. Companies in the building also have access to a technical support package offered by CCFE, and support from Oxford Innovation including funding assistance, networking and mentoring.

Since its launch in 2001, the Innovation Centre has hosted over 60 companies. Many have grown to become major success stories for Oxfordshire, including:

Kaspersky Lab UK, Europe's leading anti-malware provider, which has grown from a start-up into a leader in the international IT security market.

Toumaz Technology, the first company to move in to the Innovation Centre – a leading provider of intelligent, microchip-sized wireless body monitoring systems. Last December, its devices were used to monitor the health status of a team of explorers and scientists involved in a record-breaking expedition across the Antarctic.

OXIS Energy – pioneering the development of a lightweight, high energy, rechargeable Polymer Lithium-Sulphur battery that is safe for use in electric vehicles. OXIS has recently graduated from the Innovation Centre to larger facilities on the Culham Science Centre site as the company makes the transition from research and development to commercial production.

Acro Aeronautical Services, a specialist in aerospace engineering, which has worked on projects as diverse as the development of robotic welding guns, hanging a Harrier jump jet in the new Imperial War Museum in Manchester and a wing walking pylon for an aerobatics display team.

Currently, there are 15 companies located at the Centre and a further seven firms using its virtual office service. They include:

Reaction Engines, a developer of advanced aerospace engines incorporating compact and lightweight heat exchanger technology that can be used to accelerate aircraft to Mach 5. Using these engines the company is developing an unmanned spaceplane, Skylon, which would take off from a runway, fly into space and return to land on the same runway. It could be used to deploy telecommunications satellites into orbit and would have an operational life of 200 flights.

Tokamak Solutions – founded in 2009, Tokamak Solutions aims to commercialise spherical tokamaks as novel fusion neutron sources. Applications for the new technology range from the clean-up of nuclear waste, which could make safe nuclear power a reality, to the production of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer and, in the longer term, as part of a zero carbon method for large scale hydrogen production.

Chris Allington said: “Innovation centres are hugely successful in helping start-up businesses to grow and I believe that the growth of our clients at Culham is due to a combination of being located on a prestigious site with an international reputation and the support services that Oxford Innovation provides to help innovative companies translate their potential into commercial success. We look forward to supporting the development of many more firms over the next ten years.”

Head of CCFE Professor Steve Cowley said: “We are delighted with the success of the Innovation Centre. Start-up engineering companies are in good company here. They enter a community where three key ingredients needed to turn a bright idea into a commercially sound business are in plentiful supply: a determination to succeed, a commitment to innovate and most importantly a culture where problem solving is second nature.”

Pictured above are Dean Worthington of Culham Innovation Centre and Keith Errey of Isansys.

How Manchester started a fusion revolution

16/02/2011 00:00:00

A new multi-million pound gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester showcases the city's role in the landmark ZETA fusion experiment, which operated at Harwell in the 1950s and 1960s.

The new Revolution Manchester gallery – part of a £9 million redevelopment of MOSI – was opened by Professor Brian Cox at the end of January. Divided into six themed areas, the gallery tells the story of how Manchester changed the world. The energy area includes a display on the construction of the ZETA vacuum vessel and some of its electrical components by Metropolitan Vickers in the Trafford area of the city.

The gallery contains a model of the vacuum vessel and an interactive game in which visitors can create a fusion reaction.

CCFE assisted by providing the gallery designers with information on ZETA and putting them in touch with former employees who worked on the project – MOSI plans to incorporate interviews with them later in the exhibition.

Former ZETA scientist Mike Forrest said: "The first thing that struck me when I entered the ZETA area at Harwell over 50 years ago, was what looked like a huge stainless steel doughnut surrounded by a massive grey transformer. Emblazoned on this in large letters was 'Metropolitan Vickers', so I knew immediately it had been built in Manchester. It was beautifully engineered, a magnificent example of 'state of the art' Manchester engineering. I'm glad this is being celebrated with the exhibition at MOSI.”

More information is available at: http://www.mosi.org.uk/explore-mosi/explore-revolution-manchester.aspx.

MAST Update - Winter 2010/11

15/02/2011 00:00:00

The engineering break to install new MAST diagnostics was completed and signed off at the end of November 2010. Commissioning began on 19 January and high power experiments are expected to restart in early May 2011.

Diagnostic status

Major diagnostic developments for the 2011 campaign include:

Collimated neutron detector with scanning capability (with Uppsala University);
Fast ion D-alpha (FIDA) system;
Electron Bernstein Wave (EBW) Imaging System (with University of York);
2D Beam Emission Spectroscopy (BES) system (with RMKI Hungary);
Edge Doppler spectroscopy upgrade to enable high frequency measurements;
Retarding Field Energy Analyzers (with Liverpool University).

Most of these new systems will be available for the start of high power experiments.

Priorities for the forthcoming experimental campaign were established in the 2010 MAST Research Forum in December, which involved 100 scientists including collaborators from universities and other institutes.

ITER systems remote handling design project well underway

08/02/2011 00:00:00

Last October CCFE won a £1M grant to design remote handling equipment for ITER’s Neutral Beam Cell.

Scheduled for 15 months, the project is led by Nick Sykes from the CCFE Engineering Department's Remote Handling Unit and supported by Oxford Technologies Ltd and Consorzio RFX. It includes the design of a heavy duty monorail crane system, and at least six systems of dextrous manipulators and booms.

The equipment will be designed to operate safely in a radioactive environment without the support of manual intervention. It will support maintenance of three neutral beam heating systems; one diagnostic neutral beam and four upper diagnostic ports. Due for completion in March, the current phase of the project is establishing those maintenance procedures, which will form the basis of the specification of the remote handling equipment.

“This project utilises our extensive experience gained on JET for remote handling equipment design as well as the practical experience of remote handling operations,” said Nick Sykes. “It also has a wider focus as we are collaborating with CCFE experts who are working on neutral beam design for ITER.”

Diagram details: Part of VR simulations used to validate the maintenance procedures.

Electronics collaboration aims to give faster plasma control

28/01/2011 00:00:00

A CCFE event promoted the use of new high-speed electronic devices in the European fusion community.

The two-day workshop on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) was run at Culham on 24-25 January by CCFE's Billy Huang and Graham Naylor. Participants from several European countries attended the hands-on workshop which aimed to demonstrate and develop ideas for the implementation of FPGAs on fusion devices, as well as to foster collaboration and coordinate efforts in the field.

FPGAs are high-speed electronic devices containing lots of binary gates which can be configured to perform different logic functions, essentially programmable hardware. The main advantage of FPGAs is their real-time capability, which effectively allows real-time control over experimental parameters. As a result FPGAs can react within microseconds rather than the milliseconds that it takes an average PC. This is best imagined by comparing FPGAs to a train which goes from A to B without stopping between destinations, whereas a normal computer would perform like the train which stops at every station.

FPGAs are a relatively new technology in fusion and so not yet widely used. However, at CCFE Graham Naylor and Billy Huang are working to increase their usage, as they are a key enabling technology in a new wave of high performance electronics, including tokamak diagnostic instruments to control and analyse hardware/software.

Billy Huang explains: “There are many possible uses for this technology in fusion, especially in real-time feedback, so perhaps in future one could change the plasma control based on the detection of a plasma instability. The possibilities for usage are enormous.”

Commenting on the workshop, Billy Huang said: “It was a great success and very well attended. It is our hope that we can maintain and develop a European fusion FPGA community. One of the results from the workshop is that we will be setting up a website to help continue collaboration and draft a set of agreed requirements and solutions for Fast Controllers.”

Come and meet us at the Oxfordshire Science Festival

17/01/2011 00:00:00

CCFE is one of the partners supporting the 2011 Oxfordshire Science Festival – 26 February-20 March.

We will be at the opening event, 'Science in Your World', at Bonn Square in Oxford from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 26 February. You can come and try exciting hands-on experiments and meet scientists from CCFE and other organisations.

The festival itself is bigger and better than ever – with more than 110 events, there's something for everyone. The programme will entice even the biggest science sceptic by including events that fuse science with arts, drama, debate, history, religion and music!

For details please see the festival programme (PDF file) or go to www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.co.uk.

JET on BBC Horizon

11/01/2011 00:00:00

Comedian Ben Miller visited JET during his fascinating exploration of temperature for BBC TV's Horizon programme, broadcast last night.

The film, 'What is One Degree?', was Miller's personal quest to understand temperature and how it is measured. When looking at the extremely hot end of the scale, JET – which has observed temperatures of up to 300 million degrees Celsius (20 times hotter than the Sun) – was an obvious place to come. CCFE diagnostic scientist Dr Joanne Flanagan explained why such high temperatures are needed in fusion research and how they are measured.

You can watch the programme at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xhz90

York research centre set to boost UK fusion programme

22/12/2010 00:00:00

The University of York and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have established a partnership to create a world-leading, interdisciplinary plasma research centre.

The £6 million investment over five years will create the York Plasma Institute, with a new purpose-built laboratory, and expand the University's existing programme of hot plasma science research for fusion energy applications to include low temperature plasmas for technological applications.

The University of York is already a key research partner for CCFE, and has many students working with Culham. The formation of the institute will further strengthen fusion research in the UK.

York's involvement with CCFE will be broadened by the appointment of a dedicated Industry Officer for the new institute. The officer will work in partnership with CCFE to help make sure that UK industry is well placed to benefit from the opportunities that the international fusion programme offers, particularly from ITER.

The Institute's Director, Professor Howard Wilson (pictured), said: "The York Plasma Institute will provide a unique research and education facility in the UK, bringing high temperature plasma studies for fusion energy under the same roof as low temperature technological plasma studies, to exploit synergies between the fields and related disciplines, and drive collaborations with industry."

More information at: http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2010/research/plasma-institute/

Bad weather affecting Culham site

21/12/2010 00:00:00

The Culham site is open as normal for staff, contractors and tenants.

However those travelling to Culham are advised that conditions on the site are difficult due to the recent snow.

New board ready to take on fusion challenges

13/12/2010 00:00:00

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's new board held its first meeting on Monday 13 December, following the recruitment of a team of world-renowned physicists and highly-skilled professionals as directors. The board will lead the Authority into a new era of unique and exciting challenges. These challenges include overseeing the Authority's main research into nuclear fusion at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (through operation of the JET and MAST fusion experiments) and, further into the future, positioning the Authority to best exploit work on the new international ITER device and future fusion powerplants.

Professor Roger Cashmore chairs the new board. Professor Cashmore was formerly the Director of Research and Deputy Director General of CERN. He is finishing a successful seven-year stint as Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford.

Professor Cashmore will be joined by new board members Professor Keith Burnett, currently the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University, and Dr Steve McQuillan, formerly CEO of the National Physical Laboratory. Peter Jones, currently Chairman of the Audit Committee of National Nuclear Laboratory, and Martin Cox, the Authority's Operations Director, round off the impressive list of additions to the board.

Roger Cashmore said: “It's exciting to be working with such highly qualified and eminent physicists and engineers, who all believe, like me, in a great future for nuclear energy – in particular fusion. With the experience and skills of the new board members, I'm confident that we can provide the leadership that the Authority deserves as it tackles matters of huge importance to the UK and the future energy needs of the world.”

Pictured are board members visiting JET: Eric Hollis (Chief Financial Officer), Martin Cox (Operations Director), Derek Stork (Director of Technology), Stephen McQuillan (Non-executive Director), Steve Cowley (Chief Executive Officer), Peter Jones (Non-executive Director).

Culham's 'third tokamak' revealed

13/12/2010 00:00:00

With its torus-shaped chamber and remote-handled arm, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a tokamak. However, the machine in the photograph is not Culham's secret third fusion device – it is actually a tape library storing all of the data from JET's experiments since 1983.

The StorageTek 9310 "Powderhorn” library pictured right has just been retired after 15 years of reliable service, and the CODAS & IT team at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has taken the opportunity to install a new model, the SL3000 (shown below), during the current machine shutdown period.

Almost 80,000 pulses, 120TB of data – spanning the entire lifetime of JET – are stored, enabling researchers to call up information for a given plasma quickly. The amount of data from each pulse has peaked at 18GB – and is expected to leap to around 60GB when JET restarts in 2011, thanks to more powerful diagnostic systems. The new storage system will have to handle this increase while retaining fast data retrieval times. All the JET data have been copied to the new library over the course of the last six months, with completion expected this month.

Jon Farthing, CCFE's Head of CODAS & IT, explains: “It is a shame to decommission our ‘third tokamak', which has given us such good service – indeed the StorageTek 9310 has been ranked in a Top Ten of Innovative Enterprise Storage Hardware Products.

“The SL3000 library – despite being less photogenic – is a step forward, allowing 1TB tapes to be used for the first time. It is readily expandable, thus providing a long-term solution to our storage needs.”

More technical details about the project are on the EFDA-JET website at: http://www.jet.efda.org/jet/news/2010/12/the-third-tokamak-at-culham/

Crossing continents

07/12/2010 00:00:00

Strengthening international research links has been high on the agenda at CCFE recently, with three separate initiatives last week.

Scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Fusion and Plasma Physics, Huazhong University, Wuhan in China visited Culham with an interest in using CCFE's ECRH gyrotron heating equipment on the J-TEXT tokamak in Wuhan. Originally employed on the COMPASS device in the 1990s, the equipment was less suitable for use on the newer MAST facility, opening the way for its exploitation on other experiments.

The 20th Culham-Ioffe Symposium took place at Culham on 29/30 November, bringing together scientists from CCFE and the High Temperature Plasma Physics Laboratory in the Ioffe Institute, St Petersburg. The collaboration has proved extremely fruitful in providing engineer visits for design of MAST and the Ioffe's Globus-M tokamak, and interactions between both Thomson scattering and neutral particle analyser experts. More recently the symposium has generated numerous exchanges on Electron Bernstein Waves, experiment and theory, for the Component Test Facility, MAST Upgrade and for novel edge current measurements on MAST. Opportunities for young researchers have also arisen over the years, with Ioffe scientists working at CCFE and Culham PhD students visiting Russia.

On 1/2 December, CCFE hosted the MAST Research Forum to plan the 2011 experimental programme for the MAST tokamak. Around 100 scientists took part on-site and via a videolink, with involvement from researchers at several UK universities, other EU universities and other research institutes from around the world. The forums are held between major experimental campaigns to review progress and discuss forward plans and collaborations on MAST.

The three scientists from Huazhong University are pictured (from left Shenghun Qiu, Ge Zhuang and Donghui Xia) next to one of the 60GHz gyrotrons. Julian Hawes (left) and Chris Gurl of CCFE's ECRH Group are in the foreground.

Launch of the world's first global tokamak experiment

01/12/2010 00:00:00

CCFE PhD student Billy Huang has set up a website for the world's first global tokamak experiment, which began today.

The project allows anyone in the world with a physics background and internet access to apply to have a go at running shots on the GOLEM tokamak in Prague, a machine that has been made remotely operable by Tokamak Engineer Dr Vojtech Svoboda and his team.

‘The Tokamak Global Experiment is an innovative project that gives participants the opportunity to change real parameters on a real machine, from anywhere in the world,' said Billy Huang (pictured right). ‘Our goal with this project is to get people participating and interested in fusion research around the globe.'

GOLEM is one of the oldest tokamaks in the world, originating from Russia. Although not nearly as large as JET, GOLEM still produces small amounts of fusion energy and is used as an educational device.

Promotion of this initiative, which is run in conjunction with the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Republic and the Czech Technical University, is mainly targeted at university level physics students, but anyone with a physics background is welcome to register to run an experiment (see http://tokamakglobal.com/).

On its debut day, the experiment was a success and received 37 applications from ten countries. The organisers plan to run more sessions in the future.

Delighted with this response to the project, Billy Huang said:
‘It's been a real challenge setting up the website, but to have so many people from countries across the world already participating in real live fusion experiments is great.'

Shaping the future of fusion research

22/11/2010 00:00:00

Over 130 students attended a PhD and Masters Open Day at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy last week.

This was the second year that CCFE has run the Open Day and it attracted over twice the number of students than in 2009.

The event was organised jointly by CCFE and the Fusion Doctoral Training Network led by the University of York. Several other universities attended to describe the PhD and Masters research opportunities available in fusion and related areas at their institutions. A packed afternoon's programme consisted of talks, networking opportunities and tours of JET and MAST. Feedback from the students showed that they valued the chance to gather first-hand information to consider their future options.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of CCFE, said:

‘It was delightful to receive many penetrating questions from the enthusiastic students. I hope many of them will go on to contribute to fusion energy.'

Professor Howard Wilson from the University of York was very pleased with the enthusiasm shown by the students.

‘The event was extremely successful from our point of view,' he said. ‘We had around 50 students sign up for further information, many more than last year, so it was a good day for us.'

Further details of the event including the list of speakers and copies of their talks is available at http://www.culhamphd.org.uk.

Culham Thesis Prize

05/11/2010 00:00:00

Nominations are now open for the Culham Thesis Prize, awarded for the best plasma science thesis.

This prize is awarded annually to the candidate who has displayed the highest degree of excellence in the execution of the scientific method as witnessed by the award of Doctor of Philosophy in plasma science from a UK or Ireland University in the last two calendar years. The thesis content should exhibit significant new work and originality, clearly driven by the nominee, be well explained and demonstrate a good understanding of the recipient's field.

The prize of £500 is supplemented by an expenses paid trip to the IOP National Plasma Physics meeting, to be held at North Berwick, 4-7 April 2011, with an invited talk slot reserved for the winning entry. The winner is also requested to give a similar talk at a mutually convenient time at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.

Nominations should be submitted no later than Monday 6 December 2010. For submission details and further information please go to the IOP website: http://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/pla/prize/culham/page_40815.html.

MP's support for 'vital' science at Culham

01/11/2010 00:00:00

Nicola Blackwood, newly-elected MP for the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency – which is close to the Culham site – visited CCFE on Friday 22 October.

She met with CEO Steve Cowley for a tour of JET and briefing on the potential of fusion research and the unique nature of the work undertaken at CCFE. Nicola was very informed about fusion research as a future energy source and pledged to lend support to the work carried out at CCFE in the future.

Nicola Blackwood said: 'It was a great pleasure to visit Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. Oxfordshire has some of the best scientists and science and engineering projects in the country. By maintaining funding for science research and continuing to invest in the Diamond Synchrotron and the JET project at Culham, the Government has sent a clear message that they believe, as I do, that science has a vital role to play in securing our technical and economic future.'

Nicola Blackwood is pictured right with Steve Cowley during her visit.

New appointees to UK Atomic Energy Authority board

01/11/2010 00:00:00

The Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, has appointed Keith Burnett, Stephen McQuillan and Peter Jones as Non-Executive members of the Authority’s board for a three-year period commencing on 1 November 2010 and expiring on 31 October 2013.

Operations Director Martin Cox has also been appointed to the board for three years to ensure a better balance of executive membership on the board.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

'The work carried out by the UK Atomic Energy Authority is precisely the sort of high performing research that is vital for us to encourage economic growth.

'That’s why I’m pleased that we have managed to attract such capable and experienced members to the board to drive this work forward. Not only am I sure they will they bring their significant scientific expertise to the panel, but also their financial and commercialisation skills to bring new discoveries to market.'

Keith Burnett became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield in 2007. Previously he was Head of the Division of Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences at the University of Oxford, having been a professor of Physics there for almost twenty years.
Stephen McQuillan is currently the CEO of a listed UK Engineering group – Avingtrans plc. His previous position was as Director/CEO of the National Physical Laboratory (working for Serco). Prior to joining NPL, Stephen ran a division of Oxford Instruments.
Peter Jones became a non-executive director of the National Nuclear Laboratory and Chairman of its Audit Committee in August 2009. Peter is also a qualified Chartered Accountant and has had exposure to a wide range of financial management and planning issues in a wide range of sectors varying from financial services to electricity production.
Martin Cox is a theoretical physicist who joined Culham upon graduating, working on plasma modelling. From 2000, when the Authority assumed responsibility for the operation of JET on behalf of the European fusion community, he became manager of Machine Operations Department, overseeing the operation of most of the JET facilities as well as MAST. In 2007 he was appointed Senior Manager for all aspects of JET operation and in 2008 was appointed Assistant Director (Operations). He was appointed Operations Director on 1 November 2009.

For more information, please see the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' press release at: http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=416293&NewsAreaID=2.

Support for safe shopping

26/10/2010 00:00:00

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has taken its safe working message into the community by purchasing safety equipment for a popular Oxford farmers' market.

The East Oxford Farmers' & Community Market is a weekly, non-profit making community market. It sells fresh food from within a 30-mile radius of Oxford, supporting small local producers and enabling shoppers to buy ecologically sound and healthy products.

CCFE was delighted to help out when the market needed a number of safety-related items, such as cable mats, lifting trolleys and extension cables.

CCFE's David Homfray, who organised the link-up with the market, said:

'The farmers' market has become an institution in east Oxford so it was great that CCFE could support it. Even better, it fits in well with our ethos of working safely, which is fundamental to everything we do at Culham.'

Pictured is Dave Homfray (right) presenting a cheque for the equipment to Brian Levison, Chair of the East Oxford Farmers' & Community Market. More information on the market is at: www.eastoxfordmarket.org.uk.

From Manchester to Mull: fusion on the road

25/10/2010 00:00:00

Former Culham PhD student Dr Melanie Windridge is spreading the word about fusion to schools around the country.

Melanie is the Institute of Physics' 2010 schools lecturer, and is spending the year travelling the length and breadth of the UK giving talks on fusion to 13,000 students.

'The students are really attentive,' says Melanie. 'I'm lucky that I've got an interesting subject – fusion is inherently very interesting and energy is a very emotive subject, so it's relevant to people's lives. I think they're quite happy to listen to something about a new energy source.'

You can follow Melanie's progress on her blog and watch an interview with Physics World below.

PhD and Masters Open Day at Culham

21/10/2010 00:00:00

On 16 November there will be an event at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy for students interested in a PhD or Masters degree in fusion research.

The Open Day will feature:

Opportunities to meet a range of leading Universities and talk to current PhD and Masters students;
Talks on magnetic fusion, inertial fusion, materials science and engineering;
Tours of the JET and MAST experimental facilities at CCFE.

The event is being organised by CCFE, in association with the Fusion Doctoral Training Network led by the University of York.

To find out more and register online, please go to www.culhamphd.org.uk.

CCFE Annual Report published

13/10/2010 00:00:00

The 2009/10 Annual Report of the EURATOM/CCFE Fusion Association has been published.

The report covers the Association's activities from April 2009 to March 2010. Among the advances featured are CCFE's work on ITER systems, the installation of the ITER-like Wall on JET, the upgraded MAST Thomson Scattering diagnostic and JET dust analysis.

In his introduction to the report, Professor Steven Cowley, Head of the CCFE/EURATOM Fusion Association, says:

'The fruit of our labour, fusion power, is not yet ready, but in ITER it is ripening. One day in the mid-2020s, ITER will "burn" a plasma – the scientific proof that fusion power is possible. The work presented in this report takes us closer to that day and beyond to the realisation of commercial fusion power.'

A summary brochure and the full chapters are now available as PDF files at: http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/annual_reports.aspx.

CCFE Director on Eureka 100 list

07/10/2010 00:00:00

The Times' Eureka magazine has today named CCFE Director Professor Steve Cowley as one of the UK's most influential scientists.

Professor Cowley joins Stephen Hawking, David Attenborough and Richard Dawkins on the Eureka 100 Science List, which according to The Times, aims to 'identify the most important and interesting people in British science.' Those on the list 'are pushing back the boundaries of scientific understanding, transforming our lives through innovation and changing our attitudes to science, each other and the world.'

Professor Cowley's profile states: 'Cowley has shown an appreciation for fusing global talent as well as atomic nuclei...In his work as an advocate of fusion, Cowley has also provided a compelling argument for why government funding must increase if the race to provide carbon-free fuel is to be won in time.'

The Eureka list was compiled with the help of heads of universities, research bodies, businesses, scientific societies and government institutions. The final selection was judged by a panel including William Waldegrave (Chairman of the Science Museum) and former Liberal Democrat science spokesman Evan Harris.

MAST update - Autumn 2010

06/10/2010 00:00:00

MAST's engineering break is progressing well and is close to the original schedule.

A new 2D beam emission spectroscopy system, developed under an EFDA priority support task with RMKI Hungary, was installed during the summer. Alignment and spatial calibration was also carried out and the system performed as designed. Five staff from RMKI participated fully in the operation, including the Head of the Hungarian Association.

Installation of additional coils for control of ‘ELM' plasma instabilities, and refurbishment of the toroidal field coil sliding joints are both well advanced.

A new pair of sliding joints, designed to test the MAST Upgrade joint design, has also been prepared for installation.

The engineering break is expected to finish in late November, with experiments resuming in early 2011.

JET upgrades on target

30/09/2010 00:00:00

Work to install major upgrades on JET continues to progress well, 49 weeks into the EP2 engineering shutdown.

As this stunning photograph of the inside of the vacuum vessel (taken on 20 September) shows, the inner wall of JET has been stripped out and a new set of plasma-facing components is being installed by remote handling operators.

Around 20% of this new ‘ITER-like wall’ is now in place. The tungsten and beryllium tiles will allow European fusion scientists to test the materials mix that will be used in the next-step international machine ITER, and the project is therefore of crucial importance to the international fusion research programme.

The upgrades are the most significant on JET in size and scope since 1993, involving the replacement of 86,000 components. Operations will resume in Spring 2011 and will allow operation as close to ITER conditions as is possible with any present-day machine.

You can stay in touch with the project on the EFDA-JET website’s Shutdown Weekly page: http://www.jet.efda.org/jet/news/category/all-news/shutdown-weekly-all-news/

UK industry needs to turn up heat on ITER fusion project

27/09/2010 00:00:00

UK industry has won well over £100M worth of contracts so far from construction of the ITER fusion project in France, but needs to do better if it is to benefit from the next construction phase, worth up to Euro 2Bn. That is one of the conclusions of a UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) sponsored event on ‘Business Opportunities for UK plc for Fusion and ITER' held at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), Oxfordshire, on 23 September.

ITER will be the world's largest fusion energy experiment when it is completed in 2019. UK companies have fared well during the site preparation phase at Cadarache in the South of France. The next phase will see a large portion of the project's Euro 10Bn tokamak and buildings construction budget being spent. Over 100 companies attended the one-day conference at which representatives from ITER, Fusion for Energy (F4E) Europe's procurement agency for ITER, UKTI, CCFE engineers and UK companies working on ITER projects, reviewed the business opportunities and engineering challenges in the next phase of ITER construction, and described the procurement procedure and tendering process.

'The ITER project faces significant engineering and project management challenges where UK companies can compete effectively – either on their own or as part of a consortium. ITER is providing new business opportunities to companies who are keen to use their expertise in this prestigious programme,' says Dan Mistry, Fusion and Industry Manager, CCFE (pictured below).

'Currently UK is third in ranking (behind France and Italy) in contracts awarded but we want to be number one,' adds Mistry. 'The only way we're going to climb is if more companies take note of these opportunities and respond. F4E has nearly 2Bn Euros to spend in the next three years and we want to alert companies of these opportunities, so if you are interested please pre-qualify and register your details on ITER's, F4E's and our own database and join the list of successful companies – Atkins Global, Tessella, Halcrow, Jacobs, Oxford Technologies and Oxford Instruments to name but a few.'

Companies wishing to find out more about ITER and how to register with ITER and F4E should contact Dan Mistry, Fusion and Industry manager, CCFE on 01235 466607 and email: dan.mistry@ccfe.ac.uk. They can also sign up for CCFE's industry database at: www.fusion-industry.org.uk. Details of ITER can be found at www.iter.org.

Sharper focus for MAST diagnostics

16/09/2010 00:00:00

First results have been obtained from a new neutron camera on MAST, developed in collaboration with Uppsala University, Sweden. Dr Marco Cecconello of Uppsala and Dr Mikhail Turnyanskiy of CCFE tell us more about the neutron camera in this short video.

Hawking and Cox back fusion

13/09/2010 00:00:00

Two of Britain's pre-eminent scientists have named fusion as the century's top scientific challenge.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper on 11 September, Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox agreed that fusion is an important priority in the search to meet increasing energy demands without endangering the planet.

Hawking said:

'Nuclear fusion...would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy without pollution or global warming. Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cures, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more.'

Cox added:

'The provision of clean energy is of overwhelming importance. What frustrates me is that we know how to do [fusion] as physicists, how it works. It is an engineering solution that is within our grasp. I think the most important practical problem, which may be more of an engineering challenge than a scientific one, is to build economically viable nuclear fusion power stations. If we haven't dealt with our world's increasing appetite for energy by the end of this century, I think we will be in very deep trouble indeed.'

The full article is available at The Guardian's website.

Science Minister visits Culham

07/09/2010 00:00:00

David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, last week came to CCFE for a briefing on the status of UK and European fusion research.

Scientists at Culham told Mr Willetts of nuclear fusion's potential to provide a large new source of carbon-free electricity, as concerns over global warming and energy supplies increase.

During his visit, Mr Willetts toured the European JET facilities and the UK's own MAST research device.

He heard how the research at Culham is feeding into the next-step international experiment ITER, and how UK scientists are playing a key part in ITER preparations.

Mr Willetts also discussed the commercial opportunities open to British companies from ITER construction and met representatives of firms which have already won contracts.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, said:

"David Willetts expressed his determination to keep the UK in the lead in fusion research and to develop the commercial potential of fusion."

Mr Willetts is pictured with Professor Steve Cowley at MAST (above) and meeting Culham apprentice Tom West (below).

Supercomputer on a shoestring!

09/08/2010 00:00:00

CCFE scientists have drawn on video game technology for a low-cost way to speed up their research.

Far from spending their time playing Xbox games, however, they have been deploying high-performance graphics cards to act as miniature, desktop supercomputers that can carry out calculations hundreds of times faster than standard computer processors (CPUs). Shown right is the new system being examined by Dr Leo Ma (EFDA Fellow) and IT specialist Dr Krishan Purahoo.

Fusion scientists at Culham routinely use large, powerful multi-million pound supercomputers to solve the complex equations that describe how high-temperature plasmas and plasma-facing materials behave. As these codes take many man years to develop, and in order to predict whether the problems they are attempting to solve will be numerically tractable in the near future, modellers have routinely used an interesting rule of thumb – the fact that the number of transistors that can be squeezed onto an integrated circuit has up until recently doubled approximately every two years (a phenomenon known as Moore's law). Unfortunately, in the late 1990s it became clear that at some point in time, this law would fail, and it would simply become impossible to cram more processing elements into a given amount of space. CPU architects started to refer to this obstacle as ‘the wall’ – and the wall has been steepening ever since.

In order to solve complex fusion problems, algorithms have to be developed that exploit ‘parallelism’. Essentially, a supercomputer is made up of thousands of chips just like the ones that sit inside the computers we all have on our desktops, all connected together with fast, expensive wires. Consequently, these pieces of advanced hardware cost thousands of times that of a desktop computer, and algorithms have to be specially developed to cope with the way the hardware is connected.

Fortunately, a few years ago, scientists around the world started to notice that a cheap, and readily available piece of number crunching technology was starting to overtake conventional CPU technology in the inexorable drive for higher computing performance – the video gamer's graphics card (or GPU). They soon realised that this technology might offer a clever way of scaling the wall, by bringing the world of high performance computing to the average desktop. With a little help from NVIDIA, the world's number one graphics card designer, the General Purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing platform had arrived.

CCFE's Dr Rob Akers explains: ‘Graphics cards or GPUs are designed to do far fewer types of operation than a CPU, but what they do do, they do incredibly well – they are essentially designed to add numbers together very fast in parallel, with hundreds of parallel cores on a typical GPU chip (to be compared with typically two to four cores on a CPU). You can think of a GPU as being like a miniature supercomputer – and because they are designed for a multi-billion pound market, like mobile phones they are incredibly cheap. We have just installed a new machine – it's two feet tall, and contains nearly 2,000 processing cores – more than the entire JET Analysis Cluster put together, all for ~£5,000. We have been exploring the technology for about a year now, and are starting to reap some early rewards.

‘Calculations that would normally take a month can now be done in a day. We are getting supercomputer performance on a shoestring, without having to bid for or wait for free time on external machines to do the same work. The only downside is that we're having to learn how to program in a completely new way, but it's challenges like these that make being a CCFE physicist so enjoyable.’

Areas already benefiting include materials modelling (a typical output image showing results of spin-lattice dynamics simulations is displayed right), design work for MAST Upgrade diagnostics and fast particle modelling, and CCFE is keen to extend the system’s use to cover more projects.

New Chair of United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority appointed

28/07/2010 00:00:00

Business Secretary Vince Cable today appointed Roger Cashmore as the Chair of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority – CCFE's parent body.

Professor Roger Cashmore is the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, and the current Chair of the Nuclear Research Advisory Council of the Ministry of Defence.

He has formerly been the Director of Research and Deputy Director General of CERN, the European Laboratory for High Energy Physics as well as the Chair at the Royal Society's Working Group on the issues of nuclear non-proliferation and a member of the European Commission Fusion Facilities Review Panel.

Professor Cashmore will take up his post on 30 July 2010.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

'I am pleased to announce the appointment of Roger Cashmore as the Chair of the Authority. Roger has the experience and understanding needed to deliver a clear future vision for the Authority. I would also like to thank the outgoing Chair Lady Barbara Thomas Judge for her long-standing contribution to the Authority.'

The Authority's CEO, Professor Steven Cowley, also welcomed Professor Cashmore and paid tribute to the outgoing Chair:

'We are pleased to welcome Roger and look forward to working closely with him to strengthen the Authority and advance fusion. Over the past eight years, Lady Judge has successfully guided the organisation through a challenging period of change, both in nuclear decommissioning and fusion research. Her involvement in transforming the Authority and equipping it for the future has been invaluable. We wish her all the best in her new role as Chair of the Pension Protection Fund.'

CCFE's helping hand for student prize winners

22/07/2010 00:00:00

Three students from Didcot Sixth Form were recently awarded the SEPNET (South East Physics Network) prize for best physics project at the South East's leading science and engineering careers fair, the ‘Big Bang' event at the University of Reading.

Matt Hutchinson, Sam Taheri and David Walters worked with engineers from Culham Centre for Fusion Energy to design and build a test rig for measuring friction between different materials in a vacuum.

The students spent six months producing the project with the guidance of their teacher Neil Wright and CCFE engineer Peter Blatchford. The test rig will now be put to use in experiments at Culham.

This is the fourth year that Didcot Sixth Form pupils have linked up with CCFE as part of the Engineering Education Scheme – a national initiative that gives around 1,400 young people every year a hands-on introduction to an engineering career.

Student Matt Hutchinson said:
‘The project was an invaluable and enjoyable experience that showed us how to use our knowledge outside the classroom, in a real situation. Not only did we learn more about vacuum engineering and JET, we also learnt how to work co-operatively as a team to solve the problem. The skills we have developed during the project will stand us in good stead for higher education and later life.'

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's Peter Blatchford said:
‘I was impressed with the students' enthusiasm – they put a lot of work into the project entirely in their spare time and I think they enjoyed it. The scheme is a great way to give students an appreciation of what engineering really is; hopefully some of them will have been inspired to go on to further study in science or engineering. It's a really good thing for CCFE to be involved with and has been a good experience for me too.'

Didcot Sixth Form teacher Neil Wright added:
‘The project has been very beneficial to all who have participated. Students involved have developed in many areas – not just in the core subject area involved, physics, but also in team working, communication skills and awareness of industrial needs and practices. Didcot Sixth Form and its pupils have benefited enormously from the help and assistance given by CCFE and Peter Blatchford, the principal engineer assigned to us.'

The prize-winners are pictured opposite (left to right): Matt Hutchinson, Peter Blatchford, Sam Taheri, Neil Wright and David Walters.

Budding scientists vie for quiz supremacy

21/07/2010 00:00:00

CCFE was the location for the Inter-School Science Championship Finals earlier this week.

More than 400 schools from around South-East England – equating to 12,000 children – entered the competition and were narrowed down to the last nine teams for the final. The teams of Year 5 students, from as far as Kent and Sussex, tested their science knowledge to the full in an hour-long quiz, cheered on by over 100 parents and teachers. Topics ranged from the Solar System and scientific advances in history to how the human body works. The winning team came from Coleridge Primary School in Crouch End, London.

Culham – home to the world's biggest fusion energy experiment, the European JET facility – was delighted to host the event. Scientists from JET gave the children tours of the facility after the quiz.

'We place a lot of emphasis on working with schools, as it is so important to encourage the next generation of scientists,' explains Joana Silva, CCFE's Education Outreach Manager. 'It was a pleasure showing the contestants around and giving them a taste of world-leading science.'

Amanda Blair, from organisers Quiz Club, added:
'Culham was an inspirational venue for the children. Meeting the scientists and seeing the experiments was an incredible experience for them.'

Pictured are the winning team and some of the children touring the JET facility.

TED comes to JET

15/07/2010 00:00:00

On Monday 12 July, delegates from the prestigious TED Global conference came to CCFE to tour JET. The visiting delegates were from a variety of professional backgrounds, from media directors to medical professionals and all showed a great interest in CCFE and JET.

This is the second year that delegates from TED have visited Culham, after last year's well received talk from CCFE's CEO Steve Cowley at the conference. TED Global is held annually in Oxford, with delegates and speakers coming from around the world to attend. This year's speakers include film director James Cameron, chef Jamie Oliver and former CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates.

More information on TED Global at: http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2010/

Fusion ‘world leaders’ can drive UK technological development

09/07/2010 00:00:00

Science Minister David Willetts MP today singled out nuclear fusion research at Culham as an area in which the UK excels, as he set out the Government's priorities for science and technology.

In a keynote speech at the Royal Institution*, Mr Willetts talked of the importance of science and technology as a driving force for rebalancing the economy, with fusion as an example:

‘This combination of scientific research and technological advance creates extraordinary dynamism, both intellectual and commercial,' he said. ‘I see it as one of my tasks to strengthen these links. That is why one of my ambitions is to try to ensure that the exciting intellectual advance of nuclear fusion – we are world leaders at Culham – also drives British technological and industrial development.'

CCFE manages the UK's fusion energy programme and operates the European fusion facility, JET, on behalf of its European partners.

JET's successor, the ITER international fusion experiment – now being built at Cadarache in France – will be worth several billions of Euros to European industry over the next decade, with UK science and engineering firms expected to take a significant share. Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is working closely with British industry to maximise these benefits and to put the UK in a commanding position in the drive towards commercial fusion power stations.

Mr Willetts has already made the resolution of ITER funding issues a priority in his meetings with fellow science ministers from other European governments, as he referred to in today's speech.

Separately, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's ‘Today' programme this morning, Mr Willetts also pointed to Culham's progress in fusion and the potential to capitalise on the UK's advantage in this area. He said:

‘ I think…we've got an intellectual and scientific lead [in fusion]. I want to turn that as well into a technological and commercial lead. That's somewhere…where, even in tough times, with budgets under pressure, we can really achieve things.'

*The transcript of the speech can be found at: http://web.bis.gov.uk/news/speeches/david-willetts-science-innovation-and-the-economy

Culham’s role in global gravity mapping

07/07/2010 00:00:00

Currently orbiting the earth at such a low altitude that it's riding along the fringes of the atmosphere is the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer – the GOCE satellite. Its aim is to produce precise maps of the Earth's gravitational fluctuations. Back in the 1970s, Culham had a hand in the early development of the technology being used to power the GOCE spacecraft.

Because gravity is stronger closer to Earth, GOCE needs to be as close to the surface as possible. The instrumentation aboard GOCE needs to be as stable as possible to measure accurately and the GOCE team has created a sleek, aerodynamic satellite boasting a unique propulsion system that orbits a mere 158 miles up, extremely low for an earth observation satellite but high enough to eliminate most drag.

The gravity measurements require the craft remain stable in free fall; any interference from air at this altitude could skew the gravity data and jeopardize the mission's quality. So GOCE was fitted with an electric ion thruster that continuously offers tiny bursts of thrust to compensate for any drag the satellite encounters.

Until the development of ion propulsion, Earth satellites and deep space probes could be manoeuvred only by thruster rockets, using large amounts of fuel, but with ion thrusters the exhaust velocity, typically 1 km per second, is much higher so the mass of fuel is much reduced; the inert and naturally occurring gas xenon is injected into the thruster, where electrons are removed to form electrically charged atoms known as ions. These are ejected in a narrow beam producing a force in the opposite direction, with the number and speed of ions adjusted to assure pinpoint accuracy.

Ion propulsion in spacecraft has been developed over the years all around the world – including seminal work at Culham. Peter Harbour, who worked on the Culham ion thruster projects in the 1970s, is delighted to see their successors being used in this ground-breaking experiment:

'The results from GOCE will revolutionise understanding of oceanographic currents and temperatures, important in understanding climate change; the results will also improve understanding of plate tectonics.

'When funding for Culham's electric propulsion work stopped in 1976, we were world leaders, with the best diagnostics, the best scientific understanding, and Culham's Special Techniques Laboratory pioneered the development of the critical components – accelerating grids, insulators and cathodes. Our contract research involved interacting with five space technology companies. Work resumed at Culham for a period in the late 1980s but funding again ceased a few years later, which was disappointing. But the great and lasting satisfaction comes from seeing our work actually put to good use.'

Images courtesy of ESA. For more information on GOCE, see:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GOCE/SEMY0FOZVAG_0.html

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/BR209web.pdf

Looking for a plastic needle in a haystack

01/07/2010 00:00:00

A CCFE scientist is developing new landmine clearance technology that could save thousands of lives.

Professor Colin Windsor is part of an international team of scientists who are demonstrating their innovative holographic radar system at the Royal Society's prestigious Summer Science Exhibition in London until 4 July. Last week they had the privilege of showing the exhibit to the Queen, who was visiting the event.

There are more than 100 million active landmines spread across nearly 80 countries around the world. The United Nations says that every month more than 1,000 people are either killed or maimed by mine explosions. Metal detectors and probing with spikes remain the main methods used to expose mines. These are effective but make for slow progress, especially in the face of newer minimum-metal (plastic) mines. Over 90% of demining time and resources may be spent exposing harmless scrap.

The exhibiting scientists are working on a subsurface radar imaging device that they hope will lead to a much greater rate of landmine detection – plastic mines included – at a fraction of the current cost. The team's holographic radar system, RASCAN, employs a continuous-wave transmitter to make an image using the changes in phase of signals reflected by buried objects. The image is easy to read – even for non experts – allowing mines to be distinguished from war zone clutter like shrapnel and tin.

Professor Colin Windsor said:

'In 2008 land-mines killed or maimed someone every 101 minutes! We need something better and safer to find mostly plastic mines than the current metal detectors. Thesecan't distinguish mines from the much more numerous bits of clutter left behind on any battlefield. Our new holographic radar gives a good picture of what is beneath the surface. We think it could save many lives.'

Professor Windsor was delighted to meet the Queen and explain the exhibit:

'We had a nice conversation, and the Queen seemed to know a great deal about the landmine situation,' he said. 'We showed her the holographic radar and pointed out some of the holographs ofcommon objects which we had inlaid into our carpet. Our image of some scissors really made her smile!'

Pictured are Professor Windsor and two Culham apprentices who helped build the exhibit.

MAST update - Summer 2010

29/06/2010 00:00:00

Recent experiments

MAST went into an engineering break at the end of April to install new equipment. Experiments conducted before the break included:

Control of edge plasma instabilities (ELMs) demonstrating ELM mitigation with perturbations of the edge magnetic field;
Continued studies of confinement scaling;
Experiments studying confinement of the plasma in the presence of pellets (triggering of the High Confinement on H-mode) and magnetic perturbations;
New results on the limiting ß (efficiency) that the plasma can achieve;
Plasma stability studies with differing plasma current profiles.

A number of experiments linked to PhD studies have also been progressed including detachment, disruption mitigation, impurity transport and edge radial electric field measurements.

Neutron camera

First results have been obtained from a new neutron camera developed in collaboration with Uppsala University, Sweden. The camera measures neutrons emerging from deuterium-deuterium reactions in the MAST plasma to give information on the fast ion profile. The initial data looks extremely promising. Marco Cecconello and Siriyaporn Sangaroon (Uppsala) visited Culham to assist with commissioning and the camera was subsequently operated remotely from Uppsala University.

The various elements of a new 2D beam emission spectroscopy system, developed in collaboration with RMKI Hungary, have also been successfully tested and delivered to Culham for installation during the current engineering break. Istvan Kiss and Sandor Zoletnik (RMKI) visited MAST to participate in final testing. Both the neutron camera and the BES system have been developed under high priority EFDA Tasks.

Calibration of MAST diagnostics

Over Easter, time was set aside for calibration of MAST magnetic diagnostics and for Neutral Beam Injection tests where power notching and continuous power ramps were successfully demonstrated for the first time. Further tests have also been carried out on the 28GHz RF waveguide transmission line to identify the location of breakdown at high power. It has been shown that breakdown occurs in the antenna assembly and a microwave absorber has now been installed in an attempt to alleviate the problem in the short term.

Zooming in on the world

17/06/2010 00:00:00

St Edmund's RC School in Abingdon has received £400 from CCFE to purchase equipment for its science lessons.

The Easy View Primary Visualisers will allow the children to zoom in and magnify objects, record their work in still and video modes on a PC and project them onto a white board to share with the whole class.

CCFE's Susan Hayward went along to the school to present the cheque at their morning assembly.

'It was great to be able to tell all the children about the work we do at Culham and hopefully enthuse their interest in science with this donation to buy exciting equipment.'

Lady Judge awarded CBE

14/06/2010 00:00:00

Lady Barbara Judge, Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's parent body), received a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

The award was made for her services to the nuclear and financial industries. Lady Judge has been the Authority's Chairman since 2004 and a Board member since 2002 – more details on her career can be found on the Authority's website.

MAST's long-distance relationship

08/06/2010 00:00:00

Physicists at the University of York can now run MAST plasmas at their campus 200 miles away from Culham, thanks to recently-installed remote collaboration facilities.

A 'virtual' MAST control room has been set up at York, making collaboration with Culham easier, saving travel time and opening up the research to more students.

York is one of around 20 universities involved in the the CCFE fusion programme. It has one of the leading plasma physics departments in the UK and leads a Fusion Doctoral Training Network, with students working on projects in fusion-relevant areas including materials science, plasma physics, nuclear physics, technology, laser physics and instrumentation. Access to the MAST tokamak is a vital part of these studies.

Researchers have used the remote facilities in recent MAST experiments and are seeing clear benefits, as Dr Roddy Vann of the University of York explains:

'The remote control room has already been a success. We've had summer research students working in there and doctoral students - not just from York but from the universities of Manchester, Durham and Liverpool - allowing them to access MAST more easily.

'As a member of the academic staff at York, I'm balancing teaching and research. What's great about having a remote control room is that I can give a lecture at 9.15 in the morning, and when the lecture finishes, straight away I'm in the control room and I'm able to do experiments.

'Another great thing about having the facility is that there are undergraduate students who wouldn't normally be able to be involved with projects on MAST, but because of our control room they can get involved - even though they're 200 miles away from where the experiment is actually happening.'

Following this success, CCFE hopes to add more remote facilities, allowing the network of MAST research collaborators to be widened further.

Connor appointed Fellow of the Royal Society

21/05/2010 00:00:00

Dr Jack Connor, a theoretical physicist at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Dr Connor is one of the world's most respected experts in the theory and modelling of the hot plasmas that are used in fusion energy research. During a career of over 40 years, he has made an influential contribution to the understanding of plasma behaviour, which is essential in developing fusion as a future energy source.

He is one of only 44 scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and Commonwealth to be chosen for this year's Fellowship. New Fellows are chosen for their scientific achievements and elected by existing Fellows. Dr Connor's citation reads:

“For his seminal contribution to a wide range of issues of fundamental importance to the success of magnetic confinement fusion, including the development of gyro-kinetic theory; prediction of the bootstrap current; dimensionless scaling laws; pressure limiting instabilities; and micro-stability and transport theory.”

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, paid tribute to Dr Connor:

'Jack's insight and elegant mathematics has shaped the modern understanding of plasmas and fusion physics. Indeed the design of ITER owes much to Jack's theoretical advances.'

MAST engineering break begins

07/05/2010 00:00:00

MAST's most recent experimental campaign ended on 30 April and the machine has now entered a major engineering phase to upgrade equipment and install new diagnostics.

During the engineering break, additional internal control coils will be installed for controlling edge localized modes (ELMs). These instabilities have the potential to damage plasma-facing components and are a concern for future devices such as ITER. MAST is already equipped with 12 internal coils for ELM control and has shown that the effects of ELMs can be mitigated by applying resonant magnetic perturbations to the plasma. The extra six coils, to be installed over the next few months, will give additional flexibility and control capability.

A new 2D beam emission spectroscopy diagnostic, developed with collaborators at RMKI in Hungary, will be installed. This system will allow CCFE scientists to measure long wavelength turbulence and to investigate techniques for turbulent transport suppression.

CCFE will also be enhancing the capability to study fast ion behaviour in MAST plasmas. A new system for measuring fast ion deuterium alpha emission (FIDA) is being installed and the recent installation of a new neutron camera, developed with collaborators at Uppsala University, Sweden, will be completed.

Following promising results from a prototype electron Bernstein wave imaging diagnostic, a more extensive system will be installed. This system is being developed in collaboration with the University of York.

The control system for the MAST neutral beam heating systems is being relocated and upgraded during the engineering break. This major sub-project is part of CCFE's preparations for the MAST Upgrade project and will improve the reliability of the control systems in the short term.

Numerous other tasks, including additional diagnostic enhancements, are being carried out during the engineering break and CCFE will also carry out essential maintenance, especially on the MAST power supplies and toroidal field coils.

The next MAST physics campaign is scheduled to start near the beginning of 2011.

Partnership milestone in fusion materials research

30/04/2010 00:00:00

Culham scientists are taking part in a five-year, £7 million collaborative project to help develop materials for fusion and fission reactors of the future.

Nuclear fusion and advanced ‘Generation IV' fission power plants could form a large part of the UK's long-term electricity supply. In order to do so, however, materials science problems, many of which are common to both technologies, must be solved.

The structural materials from which the power plants' core components will be built must have high strength and toughness at high temperatures, and retain good mechanical properties and thermal conductivity for decades despite being subjected to radiation damage from high-energy neutrons. The neutrons knock atoms from their positions, scrambling the materials' carefully-designed microstructures, and produce many small crystal defects which make the materials harder and more brittle. Fusion neutrons, unlike those in current nuclear power plants, also have enough energy to give rise to transmutation reactions: this causes three problems. First, many elements ordinarily used in strong alloys cannot be used, because their transmutation products are highly radioactive for thousands of years, so alternative alloy compositions must be designed using a very restricted range of elements. Second, even 'safe' elements like tungsten and tantalum transmute into other elements under fusion neutron bombardment, so that the composition of the alloys changes continuously. Thirdly, helium is produced embrittling the materials.

The new project is led by the University of Oxford and involves Liverpool and Salford Universities, Rolls Royce in the UK and CEA in France, as well as CCFE. It will use computer modelling to predict the formation of defects during irradiation of candidate materials, which will be examined using advanced microscopical techniques and tested using novel micromechanical methods. The experiments will use ion irradiated specimens where the ion irradiation affects only extremely thin layers of the material (1/1000 mm thick). CCFE's contribution will be primarily in the modelling area, drawing on the specialist expertise gained from materials studies for the UK and EURATOM fusion programme.

The work, made possible by a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, will greatly add to understanding of structural integrity issues which underpin development of alloys for high-flux, high-temperature neutron environments. It should therefore significantly speed development of the new types of steel and tungsten-based materials that are essential for the commercial realisation of fusion and new-generation fission power. It will also help the UK to lead scientific research in new materials and to train experts for future fission and fusion programmes.

Dr Sergei Dudarev, Head of CCFE's Materials Modelling & Validation Group, and Visiting Professor in Materials at Oxford University, explains:

'This is an extremely welcome development that came at the right moment when the fusion programme requires serious advances to be made in our understanding of materials for fusion and advanced fission power generation. I would like to highlight the role played by D. Nguyen Manh, M.R. Gilbert, M.Y. Lavrentiev and S.P. Fitzgerald at CCFE who developed advanced mathematical methods, which will now be applied to interpret results of experimental tests and find solutions needed for the development of fusion as a viable power generation option.'

More information at the project website: http://mffp.materials.ox.ac.uk/

MAST update - Spring 2010

07/04/2010 00:00:00

Recent experiments

Excellent progress has been made on a wide range of experiments in recent months. Particularly notable were a series of experiments on disruption mitigation using massive gas injection. These experiments were led by Andrew Thornton by video link from the MAST remote control room at the University of York. Further studies of electron density and temperature profiles in the vicinity of neoclassical tearing modes were also conducted with a Physicist-in-Charge (Kieran Gibson) at York. Both these experiments exploited the recently-upgraded Thomson scattering system, which has also been deployed with great effect to investigate pedestal profile changes at confinement transition with high spatial and temporal resolution.

Other experiments carried out have included confinement scaling studies, particle transport experiments with modulated gas puff, experiments to change the edge magnetic field – in support of the ELM control programme, ELM temporal and spatial structure studies in collaboration with ASDEX Upgrade.

New PINI progress

In parallel with experiments, efforts continue to increase the injected power from the two new PINIs. The S-PINI and SW-PINI are presently operating at power levels up to 2.1MW and 1.5MW respectively. Remedial work on replacement bend magnets has been completed by CCFE's Special Techniques Group and the magnets are ready for testing.

Other progress

Significant improvements have been made to the system for excitation of Toroidal Alfven Eigenmodes and further experiments are planned before resuming ELM control studies (which utilise the same internal coils).

UK fusion programme nails its colours to the MAST

31/03/2010 00:00:00

The UK's innovative Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) facility at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy will receive a £30 million upgrade to achieve near-fusion conditions in a compact device and ensure the successful completion of three tasks central to the progress of the international fusion R&D programme:

First, MAST Upgrade will develop a compact fusion source. This will enable the construction of a cost-effective Component Test Facility to study the engineering of commercial fusion reactors;
Secondly, it will study the physics and control of high-performance plasmas to improve the future operation of ITER;
Finally, it will be the first machine to trial the Super-X divertor, an innovative plasma exhaust system capable of handling the huge power loads of future commercial reactors.

MAST is leading worldwide studies into the spherical tokamak, a compact alternative to the JET-ITER-style magnetic confinement fusion configuration. Spherical tokamak innovations promise to deliver more efficient energy production in fusion reactors. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council – the main funding body for the UK fusion programme – has now given approval for the upgrade project, with completion expected in 2015. This follows the recommendations of an independent review of the fusion programme for Research Councils UK, published in February 2010, which endorsed MAST Upgrade as part of a long-term funding strategy for UK magnetic confinement fusion research.

Professor Steve Cowley, Head of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, said:
'MAST Upgrade is going to be a key device in fusion research, both for the world and for the UK. We will get near-fusion conditions in a very compact device, and provide the basis of a whole slew of important experiments in physics and technology – important for fusion but also for basic understanding of plasmas and their interactions with materials. It will guarantee that on the Culham site, we will have world-leading research for the next generation, making a vital step towards commercial fusion power.'

Fusion researchers across the UK and overseas will benefit from MAST Upgrade. Over 20 institutions are already involved in MAST and Culham will look to widen this network. Collaborators will be able to develop diagnostics and heating systems for the upgrade, and then exploit the improved plasma performance of the new machine to advance their programmes.

Professor Howard Wilson of the University of York's Plasma Physics and Fusion Group said:
'MAST is a facility with an international reputation. It is also a very flexible facility that is very accessible for universities, which means it is ideal for students to get involved. That capability will only increase in the future as MAST Upgrade comes online.'

Professor Fritz Wagner of IPP Greifswald in Germany, who is Chairman of the International MAST Programme Advisory Committee, added:
'The importance of MAST Upgrade is along three lines: the background understanding of fusion; the preparation of ITER; and the preparation of the spherical tokamak line. MAST is particularly attractive to international collaborators because of the openness of the team, the accessibility to the programme, and the flair and the quality of the science.'

More information on the project is at: www.ccfe.ac.uk/MAST_upgrade.aspx.

Apprentices' scrapheap challenge

24/03/2010 00:00:00

Culham apprentices went back in time to recreate a medieval siege machine for an Oxfordshire Science Festival event.

The team from CCFE competed for Oxford's 'Siege Engineer 2010' title at Cokethorpe School, building a trebuchet capable of launching missiles 50 metres (pictured).

Deputy Apprentice Training Manager Steve Hall explained: 'The contest was great fun and a chance for some of our young engineers to put their skills to the test. It was a real challenge for them to figure out how these machines would have worked, although we used balloons instead of boulders as ammunition!'

Abingdon Schools Science Fair 2010

18/03/2010 00:00:00

Schoolchildren from eight local schools enjoyed a fun-filled day of hands-on science at the Guildhall in Abingdon on Thursday March 18.

The Abingdon Schools Science Fair is an annual event, financially supported by CCFE. This year's theme was 'Body Beautiful' and around 200 students tried out experiments and showed off their own work. The highlight was a talk by Dr Mike Leahy, creepy-crawlie expert and presenter of National Geographic's 'Bite Me' TV series.

Fusion on BBC Radio 4

09/03/2010 00:00:00

BBC Radio 4's environmental series 'Costing the Earth' has taken a look at the progress and prospects for fusion.

The 'Fusion future' episode includes interviews with CCFE scientists Steve Cowley and Marc Beurskens as well as EFDA's Associate Leader for JET, Francesco Romanelli.

The programme can now be found on the BBC website at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r5xfk

The view from China

19/02/2010 00:00:00

Leading Chinese fusion scientist Professor Jiangang Li visited CCFE in early February to discuss closer partnerships between researchers in China and Europe.

China sees fusion as one of the best long-term options for meeting its increasing energy demands. Professor Li – Vice-Director of the Hefei Institute for Physical Sciences – described how China is stepping up its fusion programme and aiming to radically cut timescales for getting fusion power on to the grid.

'To me, 50 years is too long. Even 20 years is too long,' he explained. 'We should build...an early DEMO (demonstration powerplant) which doesn't need steady state operation for 10-20 years and doesn't need a gigawatt of electricity.'

Hefei is the site of the EAST tokamak, one of the world's newest magnetic fusion experiments, designed to test superconducting magnet technology ahead of ITER's operation.

'EAST's main scientific mission is to establish a solid basis for a steady-state or long pulse operating machine for ITER or DEMO,' said Professor Li. 'We have been operating EAST since 2006 and have had very good shots.'

Chinese and European fusion scientists have been working together for many years but Professor Li hopes to enhance these collaborations:

'Fusion is not a business for one country, it is a business for all of us. So by close collaborations we can get the benefit for both sides,' he said.

Professor Li concluded: 'The energy issue is long term, so you cannot sort out all the problems in one or two years. But if you do not do it now, it will not happen even 50 years later.'

View our video interview with Professor Jiangang Li here.

Research Councils endorse CCFE fusion programme

18/02/2010 00:00:00

Two UK Research Councils – EPSRC and STFC – recently held an independent review of UK fusion strategy. The aim of the review was to develop a long-term UK vision for fusion in an international context.

The findings of the review panel chaired by Professor Keith Burnett, and the strategy document 'A 20-year Vision for the UK Contribution to Fusion as an Energy Source' have now been issued at: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2010/Pages/energystrategy.aspx

Among the key points:

The Research Councils reiterated their support for fusion research. 'The potential of fusion energy to contribute as a major component of the future global energy system is sufficiently large that it should be pursued in the UK; this is an area of international excellence in terms of research and skilled people in the UK which is contributing to a global challenge. It needs continued funding for the long term, even when difficult financial choices are being made'.
EPSRC will develop a long-term funding mechanism for magnetic confinement fusion, including support for the proposed upgrade of the MAST device at Culham. 'Through an upgraded MAST, the UK can play a leading role in the development of a Component Test Facility which may be important in reducing the risk for construction of the fusion demonstration reactor (DEMO), the step following ITER.'
EPSRC will also seek agreement with EURATOM on long-term funding for JET, recognising its 'essential role in preparation for ITER'.
The high standard of the CCFE programme was recognised. 'The UK has played an internationally leading role (in fusion development)...this has included the operation and exploitation of the world's leading fusion facility, JET, at the CCFE and the development of the spherical tokamak approach. UK expertise in tokamak operations, engineering, and fusion physics...will be essential to the success of ITER. This strength in facility operation is complemented by a leading experimental and theory programme, much of which is carried out in collaboration with universities and international partners.'

Oxfordshire Science Festival 2010

17/02/2010 00:00:00

'Question today, discover tomorrow' at the 2010 Oxfordshire Science Festival.

The 2009 Oxfordshire Science Festival was a great success and this year's is set to be even bigger and better: over one hundred science-themed events will be taking place across the County from 6-21 March. Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is once again a Festival partner along with many local scientific organisations.

The Festival opens with an open-air science fair on Saturday 6 March that will take over half of Broad Street in Oxford. 'Science in Your World' kicks off at noon and carries on until 5.30pm, and CCFE staff will be there with a stall at the launch event with interactive acitivities to demonstrate fusion-related science. If you want to see how much science impacts on your life and have a go at hands-on science, then this is the place to be, and you can even take part in an attempt to break the world record for the longest human neurone chain.

All the events throughout the fortnight are listed in the Festival brochure, which is available on the website:
http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.co.uk

Innovation on the menu at business breakfast

05/02/2010 00:00:00

Science Vale UK's breakfast seminar at Culham Science Centre on Wednesday 3 February attracted 70 delegates from Oxfordshire's business community.

The seminar was part of a series of networking events organised by the Science Vale UK partnership, which has recently been launched to promote southern Oxfordshire as a location for science and innovation business.

Keynote speaker was Robert Swerling, Google's New Business Development Principal. He talked about Google's working ethos, including their ‘nine principles of innovation'.

Other speakers included Steven Cowley and Steve Moss from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Culham; and representatives from Business Link UK, South East Business Innovation & Growth and UK Trade & Investment.

The event was a great opportunity for businesspeople from local science and innovation-based businesses to meet and make new contacts.

Steven Cowley (Chairman of the Science Vale UK partnership) told delegates:

'The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has been a big part of science in south Oxfordshire since the 1950s. Culham is a focus for business, technology and innovation. It is a place where businesses thrive, and we find it helpful to have innovation going on around us, and to have companies at Culham contributing to the fusion programme. We want to help drive forward a strong, vibrant business community in this region.'

More information on Science Vale UK at: www.sciencevale.com.

Dr William Morris appointed CCFE Chief Scientist

01/02/2010 00:00:00

Dr William Morris has been appointed Chief Scientist at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. In this role, he will have responsibility for providing scientific advice to the Executive, initiating new research areas, assessing the programme and enhancing CCFE’s scientific impact.

Dr Morris has spent his entire career in fusion research after a physics degree at the University of Oxford. He made wide ranging physics contributions to the TOSCA, DITE and COMPASS experiments at Culham, to JET and to the PBX and TFTR devices at Princeton University. He led preparatory studies and the physics proposal for the MAST tokamak before becoming head of Culham’s Experiments Department in 1998. More recently, he co-ordinated initial Culham work on ITER diagnostics. Dr Morris has had many roles in EU fusion programme and project committees, starting with the JET Scientific Council, and he is currently an ad personam member of the EFDA Science and Technology Advisory Committee.

Science Vale UK business breakfast at Culham

25/01/2010 00:00:00

Google's New Business Development Principal Robert Swerling will talk about innovation at a Science Vale UK business breakfast event at Culham Science Centre on Wednesday 3 February.

Businesses in the area are invited to register at http://www.sciencevale.com/. Those attending the event will also hear from Business Link and the Oxfordshire Innovation and Growth Team about support available to businesses from the Government, as well as hearing about the aims of the Science Vale UK Partnership.

Robert Swerling said: 'It's great to have the opportunity to engage with businesses in southern Oxfordshire. It is a centre for world-leading science and innovation and has some of the best brains on the planet. I look forward to exchanging ideas and learning from the people working in this remarkable environment.'

Head of CCFE, Professor Steven Cowley, is chairman of the Science Vale UK Partnership. He said: 'I hope businesses will come and take part in the event. Science and innovation create opportunities for all and we want to share our success and give people in Oxfordshire something to build upon.'

Science Vale UK aims to promote the interests of the southern Oxfordshire area, in particular the business and enterprise community in partnership with the three main employment centres in the area. Partners include the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, MEPC Milton Park, the South East England Development Agency and both District and County Councils.

APS honour for Jack Connor

22/01/2010 00:00:00

CCFE scientist Dr Jack Connor has been chosen as an Outstanding Referee by journal editors at the American Physical Society.

The Outstanding Referee programme recognises scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in APS journals. The programme annually selects about 150 of the roughly 45,000 currently active referees. Editors select the honorees based on the quality, number, and timeliness of their reports.

Dr Connor is a former manager of the UK's fusion theory programme and is recognised as one of the leading theoretical physicists in the fusion research field.

More at: http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees

Frank Briscoe appointed interim Director at Fusion for Energy

11/01/2010 00:00:00

Culham's former Operations Director Dr Frank Briscoe has become Fusion for Energy's Director ad interim.

Fusion for Energy (F4E) is the agency that provides the European contributions to the ITER international fusion energy project and the Broader Approach fusion agreement with Japan. F4E has an annual budget of around €400 million and around 200 technical, scientific and administrative staff at its headquarters in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr Briscoe spent 34 years at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, and for the last 12 of those years he was responsible for Authority fusion activities including operation of the JET and MAST facilities.

After leaving Culham in 2008, Dr Briscoe led an independent assessment of the cost estimates of the ITER Organization for the construction of ITER.

The outgoing F4E Director, Dr Didier Gambier, is taking up a new position with the European Commission in Brussels.

MAST update - Winter 2009/10

11/01/2010 00:00:00

MAST status

MAST's upgraded Thomson scattering system, part-funded by the University of York, has been used to measure magnetic island structures in the plasma and to measure the evolution of temperature and density profiles with high resolution during pellet ablation. These applications utilise a smart triggering system, developed by Graham Naylor, which allows the lasers to be synchronized to plasma events.

The disruption mitigation system, which utilises a fast valve on loan from FZJ Julich (pictured), has been commissioned and first experiments have been carried out by Andrew Thornton (University of York). Divertor heat loads were reduced significantly compared with unmitigated disruptions.

Proof-of-principle measurements of Fast Ion D-alpha (FIDA) emission were obtained with promising results and a dedicated system will now be developed. This project, which will be led by Clive Michael, is a priority task in the EFDA work programme.

ITER-shaped single null plasmas, centred on the vessel mid-plane, have been established in MAST for the first time, by reconfiguring the PF system. Further optimisation of these scenarios will be undertaken in 2010 when they will be deployed for ELM control studies.

The shielding for the new collimated neutron emission diagnostic (EFDA Task with Uppsala University) has been assembled and a trial installation was carried out.

The present MAST campaign will be extended until the end of April 2010 when a major engineering break will take place. During the break additional internal ELM coils and the 2D Beam Emission Spectroscopy system being developed by RMKI Hungary will be installed.

Conferences and meetings

Hendrik Meyer and Martin Valovic attended the 12th International Meeting on ‘H-mode Physics & Transport Barriers' at Princeton where they presented posters on pedestal studies with co- and counter-NBI and collisionality scaling of H-mode confinement respectively.

Brian Lloyd, Neil Conway and David Keeling delivered presentations at the International ST Workshop in Madison, October 22-24.

Simon Pinches and Clive Michael delivered MAST presentations at the APS DPP Meeting in Atlanta 2-6 November.

Vladimir Shevchenko delivered an invited talk at the JSPF conference in Kyoto, Japan. He also gave a series of lectures to students at the University of Tokyo in early December.

Operations to resume on Monday 11 January

10/01/2010 00:00:00

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority operations will resume on Monday 11 January. Snow and ice has been cleared from the Culham site, and staff and contractors should report to work as normal.

CCFE donation for Abingdon Hospital

05/01/2010 00:00:00

Abingdon Hospital's Day Centre has been able to purchase new equipment thanks to a donation from CCFE's Sponsorship Fund.

The facility provides medical day care for elderly patients and is able to offer specialised additional equipment through fundraising events and sponsorship. The donation from CCFE was used to purchase a number of pulse oximeters, which monitor the blood oxygen levels of patients.

Pictured are members of the Abingdon Community Hospital League of Friends, with staff nurse Elizabeth Whitehead demonstrating the pulse oximeters.

Steven Cowley at TED Global

23/12/2009 00:00:00

Head of CCFE Professor Steven Cowley's talk on fusion at the TED Global event earlier this year is now online.

TED Global is an international festival of ideas held annually in Oxford, UK, featuring a diverse range of 'thinkers and doers' from around the world.

The 2009 event was themed 'The substance of things not seen' and speakers included UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Stephen Fry, Alain de Botton and Marcus de Sautoy.

Watch Professor Cowley's appearance at TED Global, and find links to over 500 other fascinating talks, on the TED website.

Fusion at the Copenhagen climate summit

16/12/2009 00:00:00

Former UK Government Chief Scientist Sir David King yesterday addressed an event at the UN Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen on the potential of fusion energy.

As delegates from around the world negotiate a climate agreement, attention is also focused on new technologies that can be deployed to create a low-carbon economy. Sir David King spoke at a European Union meeting on EU research initiatives involving low-carbon energy technologies, including the ITER fusion project.

Sir David King has been an advocate of fusion for some time, having chaired a review of the international research and development programme which confirmed the feasibility of energy production from fusion.

See our video interview with Sir David King on fusion's role in a low-carbon future.

CCFE serves up donation for table tennis club

07/12/2009 00:00:00

Grove Table Tennis Club recently received a donation from CCFE's Sponsorship Fund toward the cost of a new table. The funds allowed the purchase of a third table to accommodate new members who have joined the club in the last six months.

“It is really good to see so many young people attending and playing with those who are many years their senior; it's a great example of how a local community can work together,” said Rita Hetherington, Club Chairman. “I would like to thank CCFE for their contribution towards our third table which significantly improves our facilities.”

CCFE's Susan Hayward is pictured with members of Grove Table Tennis Club.

PhD event a success

02/12/2009 00:00:00

On 25 November CCFE hosted an open day for over 80 students interested in fusion PhDs.

Representatives from 14 UK universities outlined postgraduate opportunities in plasma physics, materials science and fusion engineering, and the students toured the JET and MAST experiments.

Each year Culham links up with leading universities to offer PhDs in a range of study areas. Details of PhD opportunities for October 2010 will be posted at http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/phd.aspx as they arise.

New light being shed on the secrets of fusion plasmas

30/11/2009 00:00:00

A £2million upgrade to the MAST tokamak's Thomson scattering laser diagnostic will give UK physicists unprecedented insights into the behaviour of fusion plasmas.

The MAST experiment, located at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in Oxfordshire, now has the world's most advanced system for recording the plasma temperature and density profiles, aiding research into nuclear fusion as a future energy source. The upgrade, part-funded (£400,000) by the University of York and the Northern Way collaboration of Regional Development Agencies, was completed in September 2009 and the diagnostic is already providing data exceeding its design specifications.

Thomson scattering is used to obtain local measurements of electron temperature and density inside the hot plasma – which can reach over 20 million degrees Celsius in MAST – by measuring the scattering of light from laser beams fired into the plasma. The upgrade has increased the number of measurements that can be made during a MAST plasma pulse by doubling the amount of lasers used to eight. This allows over 150 separate time points to be captured during the lifetime of a plasma, from 130 different locations. A triggering device can synchronise lasers to the exact time of specific ‘events' during the pulse, such as the formation of the plasma or the injection of fuel pellets.

A better understanding of the processes happening in plasmas will help to improve the performance of future fusion devices such as ITER, the industrial-scale tokamak being built at Cadarache, France. The MAST Thomson scattering diagnostic will give researchers an extremely detailed view of the evolution of the plasma, as CCFE project leader Dr Mike Walsh explains:

“We expect the system to throw up new physics and allow us to observe effects we have never been able to see in plasmas before,” says Walsh. “We can also get a more accurate picture of occurrences we already know about; for example, the formation of ‘magnetic islands' that affect confinement of the plasma and reduce fusion energy output.”

Researchers from the University of York's Plasma Physics and Fusion Group, in collaboration with CCFE, will exploit the upgraded system to confirm theoretical principles of plasma behaviour. They will run experiments on MAST direct from York, using a new remote control room recently installed at the university. Professor Howard Wilson of the University of York says:

“It is early days, and there is still work to be done to interpret the first data, but already this world-leading Thomson system is revealing tantalising glimpses of plasma physics phenomena in unprecedented detail.”

The MAST upgrade demonstrates how far plasma diagnostic techniques have advanced since the pioneering Thomson scattering measurements by Culham scientists 40 years ago, which confirmed the performance of the Soviet Union's T-3 tokamak – leading fusion researchers around the world to adopt the tokamak concept. Dr Mike Forrest, who was a member of the Culham team that travelled to the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow in 1969, comments:

“In 1969 we made great advances with a system that could only give one measurement of temperature at one position in the plasma. At MAST today, 30,000 measurements can be generated in one pulse, so Culham is still leading the way in laser scattering techniques 40 years on.”

JET begins engineering shutdown

23/11/2009 00:00:00

The Joint European Torus (JET) device, located at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, has begun a 15-month refit to enhance its already unique role in the development of fusion energy.

JET, which is operated by CCFE on behalf of its European partners under the European Fusion Development Agreement, will be upgraded with key systems to support preparations for ITER, the next-step international fusion project being built at Cadarache, France.

Chief among the upgrades is a new inner wall to test the mix of materials that will be used in ITER. JET's diagnostic and control capabilities will also be strengthened and its heating power increased by around 50%.

The shutdown period will be followed by deuterium and tritium experiments in which JET anticipates going beyond previously achieved results of generated fusion energy.

Find out more, and follow progress in a weekly shutdown report, on the EFDA-JET website: www.jet.efda.org.

CCFE at American Physical Society meeting

13/11/2009 00:00:00

CCFE was well represented at the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics' annual meeting in Atlanta earlier this month.

Dr Simon Pinches gave an overview of recent results from MAST, Dr Clive Michael presented results from MAST's new Motional Stark Effect system, Dr Wojtek Fundamenski presented power and particle exhaust results from JET and Dr Clive Challis presented results of hybrid experiments on DIII-D and JET. CCFE's Dr Richard Dendy was on the programme committee for the meeting, which is the United States' most important fusion conference of the year.

Dr Roy Bickerton

11/11/2009 00:00:00

It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Dr R J (Roy) Bickerton died suddenly at the age of 82 at his home in Cumnor, Oxfordshire on Friday 6 November.

After a D Phil at the Clarendon Laboratory, Roy joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell Laboratory, where he worked with the team on the ZETA fusion experiment. In 1962 he made the move to the new Culham Laboratory, where in 1968 he was appointed Head of Experimental Division A and a member of the Culham Laboratory Management Committee. After the inauguration of JET in 1979 Roy was appointed its Scientific Director in 1980 and then Deputy Director in 1985, a post he held until his retirement in November 1988. A few years were then spent at the Fusion Centre in Austin, Texas. Roy was a regular visitor to Culham seminars in his retirement. He will be missed not only by his friends but by the international fusion community.

Launch of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy

31/10/2009 00:00:00

From 31 October 2009, the UK's home of fusion research has a new name: the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).

The laboratory, based at Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, was previously known as UKAEA Culham, and has been the site of the UK fusion programme since opening in 1960. It also operates the JET (Joint European Torus) experiment on behalf of its European research partners.

The launch of CCFE is part of wider organisational changes at its parent body, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, whose nuclear decommissioning sector has been sold to Babcock International. The Authority has taken the opportunity to rebrand its fusion operation, giving it a clearer identity that reflects its mission.

“This is a strong identity that matches our status as one of the world's best fusion laboratories,” said CCFE Director Professor Steven Cowley. “It also indicates our aspirations to be at the forefront of the realisation of fusion as a major source of clean energy.”

MAST update - Autumn 2009

28/10/2009 00:00:00

MAST status

At the end of the summer a short MAST engineering break was completed on schedule and a plasma was established on 2 September. During the engineering break, the new Thomson scattering collection lens (pictured right) was installed and essential maintenance was carried out on the MAST centre column and toroidal field sliding joints. The Thomson scattering system installation represents the second and final stage of a major £2 million upgrade, part-funded by York University. The new system was calibrated on 6-7 September and high temporal and spatial resolution profiles of electron temperature and density are now available. This major project is on schedule and close to budget – a major achievement.

In parallel with these activities, the 28GHz gyrotron, on loan from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been commissioned to high power into a calorimeter and electron Bernstein wave start up experiments, exploiting the gyrotron, have started. These experiments are being carried out as part of an EU-US-JA collaboration. The two MAST neutral beam injectors are presently being commissioned and experiments with high power NBI will resume in early October.

The present experimental campaign (M7c) will run until 18 December and will also benefit from the availability of a new fast gas valve (on loan from FZJ Julich). Detailed plans are being prepared for the next major MAST engineering break which will begin at Christmas and last approximately five months.

MAST Research Forum

The 6th MAST Research Forum took place at Culham on 14-15 September to review results from 2008/09 (campaigns M7a, M7b), prioritise experiments for campaign M7c (Autumn 2009) and consider the main aims and objectives for campaign M8 (2010). Many international collaborators and UK university scientists attended the forum or participated remotely by video conference.

Visits to MAST

Several scientists from the USA and Japan visited MAST in September to participate in the EBW start-up experiments and to assist with gyrotron commissioning.

Conferences and meetings

MAST was very well represented at the EFDA Transport Topical Group Meeting at Culham in September. Presentations were made by Andrew Kirk, Patrick Tamain, Hendrik Meyer, Anthony Field and Clive Michael.

Simon Pinches attended the 11th IAEA Technical Meeting on Energetic Particles in Kiev where he gave a presentation on fast ion driven instabilities in MAST. He also attended the ITPA Topical Group meeting on energetic particles which was held in conjunction with the IAEA meeting.