Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE, President Yoo Seok-jae) plans to create an unprecedented outcome this year utilizing its KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) device.
Yoon Si-woo, who is the director of the KFE’s KSTAR Research Center, announced on Monday that the research center has set a goal of maintaining “100 million degrees for 30 seconds” and “maintaining a high-performance plasma operation mode (H-mode) at a temperature between 50 million and 60 million degrees for more than 100 seconds” prior to carrying out KSTAR Experiment Campaign this year.
In 2020, the institute succeeded in maintaining 100 million degrees for 20 seconds. The institute looks to increase the time by 10 more seconds this year and it also looks to increase the time of the H-mode from 85 seconds to 100 seconds. By achieving these goals, it will look to prove South Korea’s nuclear fusion technology to the world once again.
This year’s KSTAR Experiment Campaign will start in March and end sometime in August. The institute is currently working on various preliminary tests.
KSTAR is a research device that is able to create high-temperature plasma by imitating the sun’s nuclear fusion reaction. Once relevant technologies are fully developed, it will then be possible to generate power using the KSTAR device.
The problem is that it is difficult to maintain high-temperature plasma for a long period of time. KSTAR maintains a stable state by holding plasma with its strong magnetic field. However, it will lose plasma once it loses a stable state. The KFE has been breaking the world record by increasing the time of maintaining a stable state every year.
Director Yoon emphasized that the center is likely to achieve this year’s goals by increasing heating device’s capacity. Higher capacity makes securing stability more favorable. The center plans to increase the available capacity of “neutral beam injector (NBI-2)” from 1 megawatt to 3 megawatts this year and the capacity of electron cyclotron heater (ECH) from 2 megawatts to 3 megawatts.
During the campaign, the institute plans to carry out other additional studies besides increasing the time of maintaining plasma. Some of these studies involve “plasma decay mitigation technology” that prevents damage from nuclear fusion and allows for stable operation and maintaining high plasma pressure for a long period of time.
Plasma pressure is determined by plasma temperature and density and higher pressure makes power generation using plasma easier. The institute was able to maintain plasma pressure, which was about 3% of the magnetic field’s pressure, for 10 seconds last year and it plans to increase the time to 20 seconds this year.
Director Yoon said that the institute has set goals that are higher than last year’s goals considering the level of the KSTAR device and that the institute is confident that it will be able to achieve goals and improve the device’s performance continuously in years to come.
Staff Reporter Kim, Youngjoon | kyj85@etnews.com