Boundary physics experiments in tokamaks

托卡马克边界物理实验

• 批准号: 8853-2006
• 负责人: Stangeby, Peter
• 金额: $ 4.3万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2008-01-01 至 2009-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=389848
• 关键词: Boundary; physics; experiments; tokamaks

Fusion energy research aims to harness the same process that powers the sun and stars. Research is carried out in large governments labs in all G8 nations except Canada. The Applicant carries out his research by collaborating with researchers in a number of these labs, generating projects to be undertaken by himself, his graduate students and research associates at the University of Toronto. OEDGE is a large computer code developed by the Applicant and his Toronto group for interpretive modeling of the behaviour of the hot plasma at the edge of the magnetic confinement fusion devices such as tokamaks, where plasma interaction with the solid structure ('wall armour') occurs. OEDGE is now used by a number of the major fusion labs in Europe and the US. Fusion research has entered a new phase with the decision in June 2005 to site the $10 billion ITER tokamak project in France. ITER is being built by an international consortium of industrial nations to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of fusion energy. ITER will 'burn' tritium, a substance which occurs only in small quantities in nature. Canada's CANDU fission reactors produce tritium as an unwanted by-product at the rate of a few kg/year, making Canada the main source of commercial tritium in the world. ITER's operational plans are based on the availability of Canadian tritium. ITER will require most of Canada's production over the next several decades, more than 10 kg, worth $10-100 million/kg. When the present generation of carbon-armoured fusion devices was operated with tritium, it was found that about half of the tritium introduced into the machine was retained in the vessel in carbon co-deposits and could not be readily recovered. Extrapolation to ITER indicates that 1 kg of tritium could be tied up in this way after a few day's operation. Since the permitted in-vessel tritium inventory in ITER is only 0.35 kg this poses a serious problem. With the aim of solving this tritium retention problem, the proposed research will involve the Applicant's group proposing, designing and carrying out experiments in the DIII-D tokamak in the US, also interpreting them with our OEDGE code.

聚变能研究旨在利用为太阳和恒星提供动力的相同过程。除加拿大外，所有八国集团国家的大型政府实验室都在进行研究。申请人通过与这些实验室中的研究人员合作进行研究，产生由他自己、他的研究生和多伦多大学的研究伙伴承担的项目。OEDGE是由申请人和他的多伦多小组开发的大型计算机代码，用于对磁约束聚变装置（例如托卡马克）的边缘处的热等离子体的行为进行解释性建模，在磁约束聚变装置的边缘处发生等离子体与固体结构（“壁装甲”）的相互作用。OEDGE现在被欧洲和美国的一些主要聚变实验室使用。随着2005年6月决定将100亿美元的ITER托卡马克项目设在法国，聚变研究进入了一个新阶段。国际热核实验堆由一个工业国家组成的国际财团建造，以证明聚变能的科学可行性。ITER将“燃烧”氚，这种物质在自然界中只存在少量。加拿大的CANDU裂变反应堆以每年几公斤的速度产生不需要的副产品氚，使加拿大成为世界上商业氚的主要来源。热核实验堆的运行计划是以加拿大的氚供应情况为基础的。ITER将在未来几十年内需要加拿大的大部分产量，超过10公斤，价值1000万至1亿美元/公斤。当使用氚操作这一代碳装甲聚变装置时，人们发现，大约一半的氚被引入机器，以碳共沉积物的形式保留在容器中，不易回收。外推到ITER表明，在几天的操作后，可以以这种方式捆绑1公斤的氚。由于热核实验堆允许的容器内氚存量仅为0.35千克，这构成了一个严重的问题。为了解决这个氚滞留问题，所提出的研究将涉及申请人的小组在美国的DIII-D托卡马克中提出、设计和执行实验，还用我们的OEDGE代码解释它们。