Man-Made Stars: Evaluating Structural Integrity in High Performance Nuclear Fusion Machines for Power Generation

Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in the core of the sun, releasing enormous amounts of radiant energy as mass is lost when hydrogen nuclei fuse together to form larger helium atoms. We observe this energy here on Earth as sunlight, despite being on average nearly 93 million miles away. 

   Demonstrating the feasibility of hydrogen fusion as a clean, safe and practically limitless source of energy has been the primary objective of over 50 years of international research efforts. At MIT the concept of a very high magnetic field approach to fusion has been the primary focus of research. At the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), experiment, leading-edge theory and numerical simulation are combined to identify and understand the science and technology that can make fusion energy available sooner.

   The Advanced Divertor eXperiment (ADX) is a nuclear fusion experiment, and more specifically a tokamak, proposed by researchers at the PSFC to provide heat fluxes, densities and temperatures similar to what we expect to have in a fusion reactor, though with only short plasma discharges (see Figure 1).