Activity of national institute for Fusion Science toward realization of helical fusion reactor

Abstract

Since 1989, National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) promotes academic approaches toward exploration of fusion science for steady-state helical reactor and realizes establishment of comprehensive understanding of toroidal plasmas as an inter-university research organization and a key center of worldwide fusion research. Three key projects, Large Helical Device (LHD) project, simulation science project, and fusion engineering project are organized for early realization of net current free fusion reactor. The LHD has been producing high-performance plasmas comparable to those of large tokamaks, and several new findings with regard to plasma physics have been obtained. The simulation science project contributes understanding and systemizing the physical mechanism of plasma confinement in fusion plasmas and exploring complexity science of a plasma for realization of the numerical test reactor. In the fusion engineering project, the design of the helical fusion reactor has been progressed based on the development of superconducting coils, the blanket, fusion materials and tritium handling.