Latest News

• 22 June 2009:

Magnum-PSI project reaches second major milestone

Researchers and engineers at the Dutch FOM-Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen have reached the second major milestone in the construction of the plasma wall experiment Magnum-PSI. They completed the construction of the complete plasma source system with cooling, gas feed, control and data acquisition, power supplies and safety system. On 18 June, the first plasma was made in Magnum-PSI which showed excellent operation of the entire system.

The third major milestone, the installation and testing of the superconducting magnet system is scheduled for November 2009. The completion of the construction of Magnum-PSI is planned for end 2009, and high-level commissioning and first experiments are expected to start early 2010.

The Magnum-PSI experiment is a linear device which is specifically designed to study plasma-wall interactions in the strongly coupled ITER relevant regime. It will allow scientists to create plasma conditions of their choice and use a range of wall materials. The effect of the plasma on the wall materials can be studied in situ with a variety of advanced diagnostic tools.

Further information on Magnus-PSI can be found in the 2009 May issue of Fusion News.

• 19 June 2009:

ITER Council endorses phased approach to the completion of ITER

On 17-18 June, the ITER Council, the Governing Body of the ITER Organization, convened for its fourth meeting. The two-day meeting in Mito, Japan brought together representatives from the seven ITER Members: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States.

The ITER Council endorsed as a working basis for development of the project baseline the phased approach to the completion of ITER construction and the target date for First Plasma by the end of 2018, maintaining operation with Deuterium and Tritium fuels in 2026. The Council also requested the finalization of a realistic schedule with the resources needed to complete ITER construction. In order to substantially reduce overall risk the primary components of the ITER machine will be assembled and tested together before the progressive installation of in-vessel components continues.

More information

Standpoint of the European Commission

• 16 June 2009:

HPC-FF reaches 87.3 Tflops

The High Performance Computer for Fusion (HPC-FF) at Jülich Supercomputing Centre during its installation in progress has reached on a linpack test 87.3 Tflops with 1040 nodes (out of 1080) working, corresponding to the excellent "efficiency" of 89.5%. For further information on the supercomputer see the 2009 May issue of Fusion News.

• 21 April 2009:

JET operates at maximum performance

On April 6 and 7, the last two days of experimental activity of the C26 JET Campaign, JET was able to operate at plasma currents up to 4.3 MegaAmpere. It was since 1996-97 that JET was not operating in Type-I ELMy H-mode, the standard operation scenario planned for ITER, at this value of plasma current.

This is an important result since it shows that the machine can be operated reliably close to its maximum performance. The availability of more heating power, already envisaged in C27, will make it possible to investigate high confinement H-modes at high plasma current.

• 28 November 2008:

Chairperson of HPC Board named

The Board of the High Performance Computer for Fusion (HPC-FF) met for the first time in Jülich on the 13th November 2008. Ms. Sibylle Günter (IPP) has been elected as chairperson of the board.

HPC-FF is a supercomputer starting operation in April 2009 at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) at FZJ. It has 1080 compute nodes (8640 SMT processors) with a peak performance of ~ 100 TFlop/s. The goal of the HPC-FF is the study of crucial physics problems related to magnetic confinement fusion plasmas and physical modelling of materials under fusion reactors conditions as well as to prepare the fusion community for the age of PFlop/s computing and, in particular, for the IFERC supercomputer. The HPC-FF is generally used for numerical simulations using larger computational domains and for the inclusion of more physical effects than it is presently possible. In addition to HPC-FF, a high-level support team with a core team at IPP Garching (5 ppy) and members in other Associations (4 ppy) will be formed to support code development in the European Fusion Community.

The HPC Board ensures the optimal use of the HPC-FF and the related resources and takes charge of the elaboration of the HPC Implementing Programme. The HPC Board shall be nominated every second year by the EFDA Steering Committee.

• 15 September 2008:

New president of National Fusion Research Institute of Korea

ITER Korea's Director General Gyung-Su Lee was appointed President of the National Fusion Research Institute of Korea.

GS Lee studied physics at the Seoul National University, Korea before majoring in plasma physics and fusion at the University of Texas at Austin in the USA. He went on to work as a member of the research staff at Oak Ridge and then at MIT, before returning to Korea to take up the post of Division Director of the Joint Research Division of the Korea Basic Science Institute. From 1996- 2005 he was the Principal Investigator of the prestigious KSTAR project and became the Director General of ITER Korea in 2007. He is also the current Chairman of the International fusion Research Council of the IAEA.