New issue of ASDEX Upgrade Newsletter

Information on research with the ASDEX Upgrade fusion device

ASDEX Upgrade Letter deals with present developments and research results from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak fusion device at Garching, on which scientists from all over Europe are working.

The current issue 20/2019 is concerned with experimental verification of calculation models for designing a fusion power plant. The plasma here cannot be completely simulated in today’s much smaller devices. In specially tailored plasma discharges in ASDEX Upgrade, the focus was therefore on parameters that characterize the core of a power plant plasma. Deviating properties in the plasma edge were taken into the bargain. Despite this, the plasma behaviour in the core of a power plant can be extrapolated and the results compared with the predictions of current computational models for particle and energy transport in the plasma.

Also reported is the method of measuring the diamagnetic flux in a fusion device, from which, for example, the energy content of the plasma can be determined. A further contribution presents the first successful, precise experimental analysis and explanation of local melt damage that can be caused by plasma-edge instabilities at highly stressed areas on the vessel wall. The results have confirmed the assumptions underlying the design of the corresponding wall elements in the ITER test reactor.