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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.