The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany, is ready for new improvements of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator facility which are needed to obtain higher heating power and longer plasma pulses.

The previous campaign resulted in big success, namely achieving discharge times of up to 100 seconds at 2 MW of input heating power and 30 seconds at 6 MW. In order to generate plasma pulses of up to 30 minutes, the engineers are ready to install actively water-cooled components inside the vacuum vessel.

The previous cladding with carbon tiles has been abandoned. One of the most important new water-cooled protective components is the new divertor made of plasma-facing front tiles mounted on water-cooled back plates. The assemblies are composed of nearly 500,000 parts, which have been developed for over more than 15 years by the Integrated Technical Centre (ITZ) and the "Components in the Plasma Vessel" work group at IPP in Garching in cooperation with industrial companies.

Plasma operation is expected to resume at the end of 2021.

Read the full article on the IPP Greifswald: www.ipp.mpg.de

Photo: Looking down at Wendelstein 7-X
Source: EUROfusion; Photographer: Christopher Roux (CEA-IRFM); CC BY 4.0 licence