PPPL-designed coils arrive in Germany for fusion experiment
Posted August 27, 2012; 02:42 p.m. Engineers at the U.S.
Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
(PPPL) have designed and delivered to Germany two critical
components for a major device to develop fusion power. The "trim
coil" components, each the size of a barn door, are the first of
five installments of one of the largest hardware collaborations
that PPPL has conducted with an international partner. The
2,400-pound trim coils have been produced at PPPL for the
Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, or W7-X, that the Max Planck
Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) is building in Greifswald,
Germany. The powerful coils will fine-tune the shape of the
superhot, charged gas called plasma that the W7-X will use to
study conditions required for fusion when the machine begins
operating in 2015. In exchange for the coils, PPPL scientists
will be able to lead and carry out experiments on the W7-X.
Stellarators are one of the two major devices that sc