Perspective on fusion research in China: (1) efforts on nuclear fusion and plasma application in SWIP

Abstract

The former Director of the Southwestern Institute of Physics, Academician Li Zengwu had suggested to the Chinese Government to promote the Nuclear Fusion Research in 1955. In the beginning of 1958, the research of nuclear fusion as future energy resources had been set up as the Fourteenth Division of China Atomic Energy Science Institute in Beijing and the Physics Institute Academy Sinica in Beijing. At the end of 1958, the East-northern Technique Physics Institute in Ha-re-bin was set up as the first institute engaged in nuclear fusion in China and then the Southwestern Institute of Physics was founded in 1965. At the beginning of this Institute, the θ-pinch, Mirror and Tokamak Research were carried on in parallel. Since 1985, the spin-off of fusion technology has been looked as an important field to make contribution to national economics and fusion effort was concentrated on Tokamak at the same time. The HL Tokamak is a general name of fusion project being carried on in Southwestern Institute of Physics, China National Nuclear Corporation. Related fusion technologies are ongoing simultaneously. The outline of HL Tokamak project and the highlights of experimental results obtained on HL-1 and HL-1M are given in this paper. In addition, the fusion efforts made important contributions to a variety of areas. Applications of fusion spin-off technologies, particularly of plasma technologies, are also described briefly in this paper.