Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Smaller & Sooner: Exploiting High Magnetic Fields from New Superconductors for a More Attractive Fusion Energy Development Path

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dc.contributor Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
dc.contributor Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
dc.contributor Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plasma Science and Fusion Center
dc.contributor Whyte, Dennis G
dc.contributor Minervini, Joseph V
dc.contributor Labombard, Brian
dc.contributor Marmar, Earl S
dc.contributor Bromberg, Leslie
dc.contributor Greenwald, Martin J
dc.creator Whyte, Dennis G
dc.creator Minervini, Joseph V
dc.creator Labombard, Brian
dc.creator Bromberg, Leslie
dc.creator Marmar, Earl S.
dc.creator Greenwald, Martin J.
dc.date 2016-12-19T20:20:16Z
dc.date 2016-12-19T20:20:16Z
dc.date 2016-01
dc.date 2016-08-18T15:42:57Z
dc.date.accessioned 2023-03-01T18:10:04Z
dc.date.available 2023-03-01T18:10:04Z
dc.identifier 0164-0313
dc.identifier 1572-9591
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105878
dc.identifier Whyte, D. G. et al. “Smaller & Sooner: Exploiting High Magnetic Fields from New Superconductors for a More Attractive Fusion Energy Development Path.” Journal of Fusion Energy 35.1 (2016): 41–53.
dc.identifier https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9001-5606
dc.identifier https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7841-9261
dc.identifier https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5283-0546
dc.identifier https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4438-729X
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/279004
dc.description The current fusion energy development path, based on large volume moderate magnetic B field devices is proving to be slow and expensive. A modest development effort in exploiting new superconductor magnet technology development, and accompanying plasma physics research at high-B, could open up a viable and attractive path for fusion energy development. This path would feature smaller volume, fusion capable devices that could be built more quickly than low-to-moderate field designs based on conventional superconductors. Fusion’s worldwide development could be accelerated by using several small, flexible devices rather than relying solely on a single, very large device. These would be used to obtain the acknowledged science and technology knowledge necessary for fusion energy beyond achievement of high gain. Such a scenario would also permit the testing of multiple confinement configurations while distributing technical and scientific risk among smaller devices. Higher field and small size also allows operation away from well-known operational limits for plasma pressure, density and current. The advantages of this path have been long recognized—earlier US plans for burning plasma experiments (compact ignition tokamak, burning plasma experiment, fusion ignition research experiment) featured compact high-field designs, but these were necessarily pulsed due to the use of copper coils. Underpinning this new approach is the recent industrial maturity of high-temperature, high-field superconductor tapes that would offer a truly “game changing” opportunity for magnetic fusion when developed into large-scale coils. The superconductor tape form and higher operating temperatures also open up the possibility of demountable superconducting magnets in a fusion system, providing a modularity that vastly improves simplicity in the construction, maintenance, and upgrade of the coils and the internal nuclear engineering components required for fusion’s development. Our conclusion is that while tradeoffs exist in design choices, for example coil, cost and stress limits versus size, the potential physics and technology advantages of high-field superconductors are attractive and they should be vigorously pursued for magnetic fusion’s development.
dc.format application/pdf
dc.language en
dc.publisher Springer US
dc.relation http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10894-015-0050-1
dc.relation Journal of Fusion Energy
dc.rights Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
dc.rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
dc.rights Springer Science+Business Media New York
dc.source Springer US
dc.title Smaller & Sooner: Exploiting High Magnetic Fields from New Superconductors for a More Attractive Fusion Energy Development Path
dc.type Article
dc.type http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle


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