East
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The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST, internally called HT-7U) is a project being undertaken to construct an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion energy reactor in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, in eastern China. The experiment is being conducted by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The project was proposed in 1996 and approved in 1998. According to a 2003 schedule, http://202.127.205.62/IAC/disk/Design%20of%20the%20EAST(HT-7U)Project/6.doc buildings and site facilities were to be constructed by 2003, and tokamak assembly to take place from 2003 through 2005.
In March 2006 Xinhua News reported that construction was complete. EAST is to conduct its initial test discharge sometime during July and August 2006. The first experiments of the reactor will be to create an ohmic plasma. Scientists will study the properties of this type of plasma for further research in the field of plasma physics.
The reactor is an improvement over China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, also built by the Institute of Plasma Physics in partnership with Russia in the early 1990s.
According to official reports, the project's budget is a relatively small CNY ¥300 million (approx. USD $37 million).
Physics objectives
China is a member of the ITER consortium, and EAST will be a testbed for technologies proposed for the ITER project.EAST will test:
- Superconducting NbTi poloidal field magnets, making it the first tokamak with superconducting toroidal and poloidal magnets
- Non-inductive current drive
- Pulses of up to 1000 seconds with 0.5 MA plasma current
- Schemes for controlling plasma instabilities through real-time diagnostics
- Materials for divertors and Plasma Facing Components
- Operation with βN = 2 and H89 > 2
Tokamak parameters
| Toroidal field, Bθ | 3.5 T |
| Plasma current, IP | 0.5 MA |
| Major radius, R0 | 1.7 m |
| Minor radius, a | 0.4 m |
| Aspect ratio, R/a | 4.25 |
| Elongation, κ | 1.6 - 2 |
| Triangularity, δ | 0.6 - 0.8 |
| Ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) | 3 MW |
| Lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) | 4 MW |
| Electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) | 0.5 MW |
| Neutral beam injection (NBI) | None currently |
| Pulse length | 1-1000 s |
| Configuration | Double-null divertor Pump limiter Single null divertor |
References
External links
- [Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics - EAST]
- [People's Daily article]
- [Xinhua article Mar 1 2006] - Note that EAST is obviously not the "world's first experimental nuclear fusion device".
- [Xinhua article Mar 24, 2006 Nuke fusion reactor completes test]
- [Mainichi Daily News article Jun 2, 2006]
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