News & events
It's goodbye to MAST - and hello to MAST Upgrade | 01/10/2013
After 14 years and over 30,000 experiments, the UK's fusion research facility MAST has created its last miniature star…until the brand new MAST Upgrade is ready to go in 2015.
It was a bittersweet moment in the MAST Control Room as CCFE physicists pressed the button for the final plasma on Friday 27 September. As well as recalling the many contributions that MAST has made to international fusion research over the years, the team was already looking forward to trying out the new equipment that will put MAST Upgrade among the most advanced tokamaks in the world.
CCFE physicist Andrew Thornton, who as Session Leader ran the experiments on the final day, added: “I've got mixed feelings – MAST has been a very productive machine but we're excited about what we can do on MAST Upgrade.”
Indeed, almost as soon as the last plasma had been produced, engineers moved in to start preparing the facility for the £30 million refit. By the end of Monday, the shutdown team had removed the roof beams in the MAST machine area as it worked towards the first big milestone – the removal of the 25-tonne MAST vessel by crane into the upgrade assembly hall.
The features that characterise the MAST of today will remain in its enhanced successor: the compact ‘cored apple' plasma shape of the spherical tokamak; excellent diagnostics for measuring the conditions during experiments; and high-speed cameras that track the plasma's formation in incredible detail. Added to these will be extra heating power, longer pulse length and pioneering systems like the ‘Super-X divertor' – a method for exhausting waste material from the plasma that looks a promising contender for fusion power plants.
Brian Lloyd, Head of CCFE's Experiments Department, looked back on MAST's achievements and explained the importance of the upgrade.
“Going from Culham's first spherical tokamak, START – which we largely built from spare parts – to MAST was a big step at the time, and we can see that it has been a real success,“ he said. “Now we are taking another step with MAST Upgrade.”
“To take fusion forward to ITER and through to commercial power, we need to keep improving research facilities. In 2015, CCFE will have a machine that we and our collaborators from around the world can use to explore new areas of plasma physics and test innovative concepts for fusion technology. We can't wait.”
Photographs
Top: Andrew Thornton prepares to run the last plasma experiment as the MAST team looks on.
Middle: Roof beams being taken off the MAST machine area.
Bottom: The 'old' MAST's final plasma, pulse number 30471.
