SST-1 (or Steady State Superconducting Tokamak) is a
plasma
Plasma or plasm may refer to:
Science
* Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter
* Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral
* Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics
Biology
* Blood pla ...
Department of Atomic Energy
The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) (IAST: ''Paramāṇu Ūrjā Vibhāga'') is a department with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. DAE was established in 1954 by a Presidential Order. DAE has been engaged in the development of nucl ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It belongs to a new generation of
tokamak
A tokamak (; russian: токамáк; otk, 𐱃𐰸𐰢𐰴, Toḳamaḳ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being d ...
s with the major objective being steady state operation of an advanced configuration ('D' Shaped) plasma. It has been designed as a medium-sized tokamak with superconducting magnets.
The SST-1 project helped India become capable of conceptualizing and making a fully functional fusion based reactor device. The SST-1 System is housed in Institute for Plasma Research,
Gandhinagar
Gandhinagar (, ) is the capital of the state of Gujarat in India. Gandhinagar is located approximately 23 km north of Ahmedabad, on the west central point of the Industrial corridor between Delhi, the political capital of India, and Mu ...
.
The SST-1 mission has been chaired by Indian plasma physicists Prof. Y.C. Saxena, Dr. Chenna Reddy, and is headed by Dr. Subrata Pradhan.
Next stage of the SST-1 mission, the SST-2, dubbed as 'DEMO', has already been initiated.
History
The first talks about SST Mission started in 1994. The technical details and mechanical drawings of the system were finalized in 2001. The machine was fabricated by 2005.
Godrej Godrej may refer to:
* Godrej family, a wealthy business family in India
**Ardeshir Godrej (1868–1936)
** Pirojsha Burjorji Godrej (1882–1972)
**Adi Godrej (born 1942)
**Nadir Godrej
** Jamshyd Godrej
**Pirojsha Adi Godrej
* Godrej Group, a grou ...
-Boyce Pvt. Ltd. played a crucial role in fabrication of the SST-1 coils. The assembly of SST-1 convinced the top brass of
Indian bureaucracy
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
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* South Asia ...
to give a green flag to the claim of Indian physicists to join the
ITER
ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Earth ...
program ee Info Box On 17 August 2005, PM Sayeed, then India's power minister informed the
Rajya Sabha
The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...
about India's claim to join ITER.
A team from ITER, France visited the SST-1 mission control housed in Institute for Plasma Research to see the advances Indian scientists had made. Finally on 6 December 2005, India was officially accepted as a full partner of the ITER project.
To improve and modify some of the components, the SST-1 machine was subsequently disassembled. The improved version of the machine was completely assembled by January 2012.
It was fully commissioned in 2013. And by 2015, produces repeatable plasma discharges up to ~ 500 ms with plasma currents in excess of 75000 A at a central field of 1.5 T.Int'l Tokamak research:SST-1 /ref> "SST-1 is also the only tokamak in the world with superconducting toroidal field magnets operating in two-phase helium instead of supercritical helium in a cryo-stable manner, thereby demonstrating reduced cold helium consumption. "SST-1 General Information
As of Dec 2015 it is having upgrades including to the plasma facing components to allow longer pulses.
Objectives
Traditionally the tokamaks have operated with a `transformer' action- with plasma acting as a secondary, thus having the vital `self-generated' magnetic field on top of the `externally generated' (toroidal and equilibrium) fields. This is a pretty good scheme in which creation, current-drive and heating are neatly integrated and remained a choice of the fusion community for many years until the stage came to heat the plasma to multi-keV temperatures. Heating was then accomplished separately by radio frequency (RF) waves and/or energetic
neutral beam injection
Neutral-beam injection (NBI) is one method used to heat plasma inside a fusion device consisting in a beam of high-energy neutral particles that can enter the magnetic confinement field. When these neutral particles are ionized by collision with ...
(NBI).
Subsequently, excellent control got established on tokamak plasma performance by controlling the plasma-wall interaction processes at the plasma boundary so the plasma duration was limited primarily by the `transformer pulse length'. However, for relevance to future power reactors it is essential to operate these devices in a steady state mode. The very idea of steady state operation presents a series of physics and technology challenges. For example, the excellent plasma performance which was accomplished earlier, was with the surrounding material wall acting as a good 'pump' of particles, a fact which may not be true in steady state.
So one has to try and accomplish an equally good performance in presence of a possibly `saturated' wall. Secondly, a host of engineering and technical considerations spring up. The magnets must be
superconducting
Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic field, magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material e ...
type, otherwise the power dissipation in conventional (resistive) types can reach uneconomical levels. They have to be specially designed to remain superconducting in spite of their proximity to the other `warm' objects (like vacuum vessel etc.). The heat and particle exhaust must be handled in steady state with specialized tiles and active cooling. The advanced, so-called double null divertor plasma configuration has to be maintained through efficient feedback control avoiding plasma disruptions over long discharge durations.
Tokamak parameters
Plasma diagnostics on SST-1
SST-1 will feature many new plasma diagnostic devices, many of which are being used for the first time in fusion research in India. Some of the novel plasma diagnostics devices incorporated in SST-1 are:
* Fast Scanning
Langmuir probe
A Langmuir probe is a device used to determine the electron temperature, electron density, and electric potential of a plasma. It works by inserting one or more electrodes into a plasma, with a constant or time-varying electric potential between ...
system
* Gas Puff Imaging Diagnostics
*
Bolometer
A bolometer is a device for measuring radiant heat by means of a material having a temperature-dependent electrical resistance. It was invented in 1878 by the American astronomer Samuel Pierpont Langley.
Principle of operation
A bolometer ...
for imaging Divertor radiations
Almost all of the diagnostic devices installed on SST-1 are indigenous and are designed and developed by Diagnostics Group of Institute for Plasma Research. This group is the only group working on plasma diagnostics and related technologies in Indian Subcontinent.
SST-2
The next stage of SST mission, the SST-2 fusion reactor, dubbed as 'DEMO' among Indian scientific circles has already been conceived. A group of eminent scientists from Institute for Plasma Research is working towards making of a full-fledged fusion reactor capable of producing electricity. Many new features like D-T plasma, Test Blanket Module, Biological shielding and an improved divertor will be incorporated in SST-2. SST-2 will also be built in the Indian state of
Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
. The land acquisition and other basic formalities have been completed for the same.
Other fusion reactors
Other designs of
fusion reactor
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices des ...
are
DEMO
Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to:
Music and film
*Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release
* ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes
* ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...
,
Wendelstein 7-X
The Wendelstein 7-X (abbreviated W7-X) reactor is an experimental stellarator built in Greifswald, Germany, by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), and completed in October 2015.NIF,
HiPER
The High Power laser Energy Research facility (HiPER), is a proposed experimental laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) device undergoing preliminary design for possible construction in the European Union. , the effort appears to be i ...
Megaproject
A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project.
According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management'', "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and ...
*
Fusion for Energy
Fusion for Energy (F4E) is a joint undertaking of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) that is responsible for the EU's contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world's largest scientific partner ...
, EU organisation managing ITER
*
Nuclear power in India
Nuclear power is the fifth-largest source of electricity in India after coal, gas, hydroelectricity and wind power. , India has 22 nuclear reactors in operation in 8 nuclear power plants, with a total installed capacity of 7,380 MW.
Nuclear p ...