Fusion glossary
F
The interior surface of the tokamak, closest to the plasma. Detachable, front-facing elements of the ITER blanket (called first wall panels) will be installed to withstand the heat flux from the plasma.
The system which extracts deuterium, tritium and impurities from the plasma exhaust stream and prepares deuterium and tritium for re-injection into the plasma.
Small slugs of frozen deuterium and tritium fuel in the 3-6 mm diameter range fired frequently (up to 20 pellets per second) into the plasma to maintain sufficient fuel density in the plasma core. Pellet injection is also efficient in controlling Edge Localized Modes, or ELMs. Special technology is being developed to allow these pellets to fly along curved trajectories, thereby attaining specific zones within the plasmas where ELMs are particularly disruptive.
The merging of two light atomic nuclei into a heavier nucleus, with a resultant loss in the combined mass and a massive release of energy.
The level of power amplification, Q, or the energy confinement time during a fusion reaction.
The "triple product" of density, confinement time and plasma temperature is used by researchers to measure the performance of a fusion plasma. The triple product has seen an increase of a factor of 10,000 in the last fifty years of fusion experimentation; less than an additional factor of ten is needed to arrive at the level of performance required for a fusion power plant. See also: Lawson's Criteria