VIRTUAL
 

Thursday, October 1st , 2020

3:45 – 4:45 p.m.

WEBEX


Speaker: Glen A. Wurden,

 

P-24 Plasma Physics

LANL 

 

“Ongoing Experiments on the Wendelstein W7-X Superconducting Stellarator”

 

 

 

Abstract: 

 

W7-X is the world’s largest optimized stellarator, a magnetic fusion experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany. The purpose of Wendelstein 7-X is to test stellarator plasma confinement against code predictions, while handling steady-state heat fluxes of up to 10 MW/m^2 on divertor (wall) components.  Scientists from multiple US institutions have been collaborating there with support from the US DOE since 2011 and have participated in two experimental campaigns since physics operations first began in Dec. 2015. The most recent campaign, testing so-called “magnetic island divertors” was from June-Oct. 2018, which produced hydrogen plasmas with durations of up to 100 seconds, and a stellarator record nT-Tau (product of density-temperature-confinement time) of 6.5 × 1019 keV m−3 sec. I will describe the layout of the machine, some of the recent results and findings, and plans for the next operational period, which will have fully-water cooled interior wall components, that will allow eventual plasma pulses of up to 30 minutes duration. 

 

A recent open access paper can be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5098761

Performance of Wendelstein 7-X stellarator plasmas during the first divertor operation phase

Physics of Plasmas 26, 082504 (2019)