Since the last concrete pour of the Tokamak Complex basemat slab two months ago, the ITER worksite has been undergoing a transformation as the consortium responsible for foundation works (GTM) has been winding down its activities and the consortium charged with the construction of the Tokamak Complex and eight auxiliary buildings (VFR) has taken possession of the different work areas. In this picture taken on 30 October, the tallest crane on site (left, 82 m) is being used to carefully position the boom of the 52-metre crane at the very centre of the basemat. Work is also underway on a third crane (far right, in red); the concrete base is in place (5 x 5 m) and the metal structure is rising section by section.   Forming a perfect circle around the central crane are the starter bars for the 3.25-metre-thick bioshield wall that will surround the machine. A wider circle, with starter bars spaced at regular intervals, marks out the columns that will support the second slab level (B1) of the Tokamak Complex.   Noticeable change is also taking place on the site of the Assembly Building, to the south of the Seismic Pit. In this picture Yves Belpomo, construction coordinator for ITER Building Site & Infrastructure, and Vincenzo Sarica, head controller for concrete and steel structures at Engage (architect/engineer for the European Domestic Agency), are seen inspecting one of the 12-metre column sections that will be assembled as part of the steel "skeleton" of the Assembly Building.   Eleven 60-metre pillars will be spaced every 9.3 metres along each side of the basemat to support the steel frame and the roof of the building. A parallel row of columns—not quite as thick and set inwards by a few metres—will support the rails for the double 750-tonne gantry crane and the two 50-tonne auxiliary cranes.   Bolting the bracings that tie the two parallel rows of columns together is not a simple operation: first, the bolts are tightened to 75 percent of the nominal torque; the final torque is applied only after strict control of the assembly's geometry.

Recognizing the importance of disseminating intellectual property rights among the ITER Members, ITER Organization Legal Affairs engages in regular contact with intellectual property contact persons in the seven Members/Domestic Agencies. These contact persons are great resources in terms of intellectual property coordination for the ITER Project.   On 20-21 October, the ITER Organization hosted the 6th Intellectual Property Contact Persons meeting, chaired by the Legal Advisor. In addition to status reports on intellectual property from China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, US and the ITER Organization, the contact persons and the ITER Organization discussed fundamental issues, such as the timing and conditions for disclosure of background intellectual property (intellectual property developed prior to contractual arrangements and that they intend to incorporate in the execution of the work) and how to properly protect confidential intellectual property. As an emerging issue, the participants also exchanged views on the qualification of "off-the-shelf items" in relation to their contractors.     The intellectual property contact persons actively contributed to discussions on the development of intellectual property management and all benefited from one another's experience and talents, knowing that cultivating good intellectual property practices can result in great value. The meeting concluded with the ITER Director-General's remarks that collaboration on intellectual property issues among the Members continues to be a driving force for the success of the ITER Project. 

Metals are central to the progress of civilization. From the early furnaces of the Copper Age to the present-day laboratories developing sophisticated alloys and compounds, metallurgy has shaped most aspects of man's daily life for the past 10,000 years.   As the world enters a new age, characterized by an ever-growing need across the industrial landscape for new, high-performance materials, a renewed effort is needed to develop high-value, high-efficiency metal products.   Europe has decided to meet this grand challenge—as grand as the energy challenge it is closely connected to—by establishing a one-billion-euro research program "that can design, develop and deploy the next set of revolutionary alloys and composites for key industrial applications," as recommended in 2012 by the European Science Foundation.   The program, called Metallurgy Europe, will cover seven years and include contributions from 170 companies and laboratories from 20 countries. According to its promoters, it has the potential of creating over 100,000 new jobs in the materials, manufacturing and engineering sectors.   "This new program allows us to enter the high-tech metals age. The top management of industry have come together for the first time on this important topic, and there is a confident feeling that Metallurgy Europe will deliver many unique, exciting and profitable technologies," explains David Jarvis, head of strategic and emerging technologies at the European Space Agency and chairman of Metallurgy Europe.   Fusion is among the fields of research and industry that stand to benefit most from such an initiative.  We asked Elizabeth Surrey, Technology Programme Leader at the Culham Center for Fusion Energy, CCFE (one of the partners in Metallurgy Europe) to explain what is at stake for the fusion community.   Why is metallurgy so important for fusion's future?   Fusion research is entering a more technology and industry focused phase and new, advanced technologies are required to successfully deliver economical fusion power. Key to this drive will be the development of new materials that can operate within the unprecedentedly demanding environmental conditions anticipated in future fusion reactors, for example high radiation levels, high temperatures and very high heat fluxes. Advanced manufacturing and characterization will be critical in developing these new materials as well as in understanding the effects of the fusion environment on current and future alloys; thus, the success and economics of fusion power critically requires active engagement with metallurgy.   Elizabeth Surrey, Technology Programme Leader at the Culham Center for Fusion Energy (CCFE): "The success and economics of fusion power critically requires active engagement with metallurgy." CCFE has recently established a Materials Research Laboratory. What is the aim of this lab? How will it relate to the Metallurgy Europe program?   The new Materials Research Laboratory is part of a larger multi-site endeavour in the UK known as the National Nuclear User Facilities. These facilities are key research centres aimed at empowering our scientists to study and understand the effects of irradiation damage on materials, and metals in particular, using the most state-of-the-art equipment and techniques. The Materials Research Laboratory is already assisting in our understanding of irradiation damage and will help understand and develop new irradiation-resistant materials.   The Materials Research Laboratory is one of the most advanced facilities for microscopy and micro-mechanical testing of materials across Europe. The facility will interlink with the wider Metallurgy Europe program through collaborative research utilizing state-of-the-art equipment and the growing knowledge base at CCFE. We anticipate that these programs will focus on a range of cutting edge research into nuclear materials, including the development of novel characterization techniques, helping to keep fusion science at the head of materials research. What does CCFE expect from the Metallurgy Europe program? The Metallurgy Europe program will be one of the key gateways for CCFE, and the fusion community, to be at the forefront of materials research. Through active engagement with the Metallurgy Europe program, CCFE can assist in highlighting the exciting materials and manufacturing challenges faced by fusion and engage a wider participation into these investigations to find novel and synergizing approaches to the critical issues. CCFE is already engaged in pan-European projects, developing novel alloys and utilizing advanced additive layer manufacturing techniques, and we aim to develop these areas and also expand into new areas. Ultimately CCFE's engagement will be key to developing joint projects aimed at accelerating the metallurgical research required in fusion, especially advanced steels and tungsten and its alloys.

​Melvyn Bragg from "In Our Time" and his guests discuss nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars. In the 1920s physicists predicted that it might be possible to generate huge amounts of energy by fusing atomic nuclei together, a reaction requiring enormous temperatures and pressures. Today we know that this complex reaction is what keeps the Sun shining. Scientists have achieved fusion in the laboratory and in nuclear weapons; today it is seen as a likely future source of limitless and clean energy.Guests:Philippa Browning, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of ManchesterSteve Cowley, Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy AuthorityJustin Wark, Professor of Physics and fellow of Trinity College at the University of OxfordProducer: Thomas Morris. Listen to the 43-minute program that aired on 30 October 2014 (9:30 p.m.) here.

​Where else would you like to study fusion science and engineering but in the heart of the Eternal City? The second oldest public university in Rome, the University of Rome "Tor Vergata," has offered a Second Level Master course in Fusion Energy Science and Engineering since 2012. Open to postgraduates with a Master's degree or equivalent title, the course aims to train experts in the areas of machine operation, experimental practice both in magnetic confinement and inertial fusion, and fusion technology and engineering. The next course starts on 2 February 2015. The duration of the course is one academic year but it can be extended to two academic years according to individual study plans. Enrolment is open now. For more information, see the dedicated website, or contact: Dr. Colomba Russo Phone: +390672597201 Mail: segreteriafusione@gmail.com

The latest issue of the European Domestic Agency's newsletter, F4ENews, has just been released. You can consult it here.

​Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Germany have devised a new method for minimizing turbulence in bumpy donut-shaped experimental fusion facilities called stellarators. This month in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, these authors describe an advanced application of the method that could help physicists overcome a major barrier to the production of fusion energy in such devices, and could also apply to their more widely used symmetrical donut-shaped cousins called tokamaks. This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science. Turbulence allows the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions to escape from the magnetic fields that confine the gas in stellarators and tokamaks. This turbulent transport occurs at comparable levels in both devices, and has long been recognized as a challenge for both in producing fusion power economically.   "Confinement bears directly on the cost of fusion energy," said physicist Harry Mynick, a PPPL coauthor of the paper, "and we're finding how to reshape the plasma to enhance confinement."   The new method uses two types of advanced computer codes that have only recently become available. The authors modified these codes to address turbulent transport, evolving the starting design of a fusion device into one with reduced levels of turbulence. The current paper applies the new method to the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, soon to be the world's largest when construction is completed in Greifswald, Germany.   Results of the new method, which has also been successfully applied to the design of smaller stellarators and tokamaks, suggest how reshaping the plasma in a fusion device could produce much better confinement. Equivalently, improved plasma shaping could produce comparable confinement with reduced magnetic field strength or reduced facility size, with corresponding reductions in the cost of construction and operation.   Read the full report on the PPPL website. -- Magnetic field strength in a turbulence-optimized stellarator design. Regions with the highest strength are shown in yellow.  

​Recent fusion experiments on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics (California, US) and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT (Massachusetts, US), show that beaming microwaves into the centre of the plasma can be used to control the density in the centre of the plasma, where a fusion reactor would produce most of its power. Several megawatts of microwaves mimic the way fusion reactions would supply heat to plasma electrons to keep the "fusion burn" going. The new experiments reveal that turbulent density fluctuations in the inner core intensify when most of the heat goes to electrons instead of plasma ions, as would happen in the center of a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Supercomputer simulations closely reproduce the experiments, showing that the electrons become more turbulent as they are more strongly heated, and this transports both particles and heat out of the plasma.   "We are beginning to uncover the fundamental mechanisms that control the density, under conditions relevant to a real fusion reactor," says Dr. Darin Ernst, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the experiments and simulations, together with co-leaders Dr. Keith Burrell (General Atomics), Dr. Walter Guttenfelder (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), and Dr. Terry Rhodes (UCLA).   Read the full report on Science Daily.     --Supercomputer simulation shows turbulent density fluctuations in the core of the Alcator C-Mod tokamak during strong electron heating. Credit: D. R. Ernst, MIT