Venture-Project-Thesis proposal (pdf)

Inexpensive energy is vital to our developed societies. Repetitive economic crisis and recessions tend to occur after petrol price spikes, e.g. see 'Economic research'. In the future, nuclear fusion must provide an inexpensive and clean energy source. However, magnetic fusion is still in development. Moreover, currently planned fusion reactors are large, complex and expensive. Thus, a radical simplification of the design, construction and operation is needed in order to become competitive. Innovation is crucial to overcome these issues. Developments for low cost construction of fusion devices are the main focus of the R&D pursued in the UST_2 project. In addition, other innovations are required in parallel to achieve a vying fusion energy source.

UST_1 (Built). The UST_1 is a small stellarator built in a private laboratory. It is the third modular-type stellarator built. It is the first such device designed and built by a single person and it has been shown to be economical with acceptable performance. UST_1 was devised, designed, built and operated from 2005 to 2007. The simulated and measured magnetic surfaces showed good agreement. Moreover, low temperature and density plasmas were regularly produced (Te > 2 eV, ne~2e17 m-3). Low cost construction methods were demonstrated in the UST_1 development. Read more.

 

 

Innovative toroidal milling machine used to mechanise the UST_1 stellarator

UST_2 (ongoing, 1-2 years plan). The ongoing venture project UST_2 is aimed at the construction of a low cost, good confinement, high beta torus. If successful, then low-cost fast-production fabrication cycles of different magnetic configurations would be feasible. The focus of this work is R&D and implementation of low-cost innovative fabrication methods. The size of the device will depend on the funds available. UST_1 scaled by a factor 2 or 3 is its planned maximum size. The quality of the magnetic confinement and Beta limit will depend on the magnetic configuration provided by the fusion community. A PhD Thesis could be obtained from this R&D. Read more.

UST_3. The medium-term development UST_3 (2-4 years plan) is aimed at bringing together the capabilities of two or three international research groups in the field of stellarator or advanced tokamak design. UST_3 would be built using the methods developed for UST_2. An ideal UST_3 should fulfil three aims: i) to be turbulence optimised to a certain degree (and also neoclassical), ii) to implement radical innovation for power extraction (divertors) and iii) to achieve improved plasma-wall interaction for a small device. Anyone who is interested is invited to collaborate with specific and practical designs for coil configurations that would simultaneously fulfil the 3 cited objectives.