The University of Seville’s SMART tokamak has achieved a critical milestone by creating its first tokamak plasma, utilizing a unique negative triangularity that increases stability and efficiency.
This advancement signals a promising future for fusion energy, potentially revolutionizing how we generate power.
Breakthrough in Fusion Energy
The SMART device has achieved a major milestone by successfully generating its first tokamak plasma, marking a significant step toward the goal of sustainable, clean, and virtually limitless fusion energy. This achievement brings the global fusion research community closer to making controlled fusion a practical energy source.
SMART is a cutting-edge experimental fusion device developed and operated by the Plasma Science and Fusion Technology Laboratory at the University of Seville. What makes SMART unique is its advanced ability to flexibly shape plasmas, setting it apart as the only spherical tokamak of its kind in the world. It is specifically designed to explore the physics and engineering potential of negative triangularity plasmas, a promising approach for developing compact fusion power plants based on spherical tokamak designs.
Leading the Charge in Fusion Technology
Prof. Manuel García Muñoz, Principal Investigator of the SMART tokamak, stated: “This is an important achievement for the entire team as we are now entering the operational phase of SMART. The SMART approach is a potential game changer with attractive fusion performance and power handling for future compact fusion reactors. We have exciting times ahead!
Prof. Eleonora Viezzer, co-PI of the SMART project, adds: “We were all very excited to see the first magnetically confined plasma and are looking forward to exploiting the capabilities of the SMART device together with the international scientific community. SMART has awoken great interest worldwide.
Shaping the Future of Energy
The triangularity describes the shape of the plasma. Most tokamaks operate with positive triangularity, meaning that the plasma shape looks like a D. When the D is mirrored (as shown in the figure on the right), the plasma has negative triangularity.
Negative triangularity plasma shapes feature enhanced performance as it suppresses instabilities that expel particles and energy from the plasma, preventing severe damage to the tokamak wall. Besides offering high fusion performance, negative triangularity also feature attractive power handling solutions, given that it covers a larger divertor area for distributing the heat exhaust. This also facilitates the engineering design for future compact fusion power plants.
Paving the Way for Compact Fusion Power Plants
SMART is the first step in the Fusion2Grid strategy led by the PSFT team and, in collaboration with the international fusion community, is aimed at the most compact and most efficient magnetically confined fusion power plant based on Negative Triangularity shaped Spherical Tokamaks.
SMART will be the first compact spherical tokamak operating at fusion temperatures with negative triangularity shaped plasmas.
The objective of SMART is to provide the physics and engineering basis for the most compact design of a fusion power plant based on high-field Spherical Tokamaks combined with Negative Triangularity. The solenoid-driven plasma represents a major achievement in the timeline of getting SMART online and advancing towards the most compact fusion device.
Reference: “Performance prediction applying different reduced turbulence models to the SMART tokamak” by D.J. Cruz-Zabala, M. Podestà, F. Poli, S.M. Kaye, M. Garcia-Munoz, E. Viezzer and J.W. Berkery, 7 November 2024, Nuclear Fusion.
DOI: 10.1088/1741-4326/ad8a70
The Plasma Science and Fusion Technology Lab of the University of Seville hosts the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) and leads several worldwide efforts on energetic particles and plasma transport and stability towards the development of magnetically confined fusion energy.
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11 Comments
Tokamak is not the optimal choice. The almost perpetually working topological intelligent batteries may be the future of energy for human society.
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Please witness the grand performance of some so-called academic publications (including PRL, Nature, Science, etc.). https://scitechdaily.com/microscope-spacecrafts-most-precise-test-of-key-component-of-the-theory-of-general-relativity/#comment-854286. Some so-called academic publications (including PRL, Nature, Science, etc.) are addicted to their own small circles and have long deviated from science. They hardly know what ashamed is.
Love this bot acting like he knows better than the people making these incredible machines.
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Thank you for browsing.
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The quack is too foolish to understand that two sets of cobalt 60 rotating in opposite directions can form two objects that mirror each other. some so-called academic publications (including PRL, Nature, Science, etc.) are outstanding representatives of today’s science, who firmly believe that two sets of Cobalt-60 rotating in opposite directions can form two objects that mirror each other, and naturally deserve to receive a grand prize. Only they are smart people, the public are fools.
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Please monitor and remove AI posts.
Intelligent pupil, it’s not AI. Is AI that stupid?
For the so-called academic publications (including PRL, Nature, Science, etc.), what you think of as AI is just trash.
Please don’t worry.
Huh…what.,???