The progress and current status of Tokamak: a systematic review

Yuxuan Song,S Islam,W Liu

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202129202067

Abstract

Nuclear fusion energy is an ideal energy source for the future due to the clean and efficient features, first proposed by Russian scientists in the 1950s. With the successful construction and operation of a batch of tokamak devices globally, a series of major achievements have been realized in magnetic confinement fusion (MF). On this basis, the recent progress and current status of tokamak devices are systematically reviewed from academic literatures and official websites. To better demonstrate, the principle of MF and the history of a tokamak are introduced firstly. Subsequently, developments of four typical state-of-art tokamak facilities (JT60, FTFR, JET, EAST) are discussed detailly. These results offer a guideline for tokamak device construction and MCF realization.

Highlights

Nuclear fusion is a reaction that combines two or more atom nuclei to form a heavier atom nuclear and other matters
The deuterium source is plentiful on the earth, while the tritium can be obtained from lithium
Fusion power plants will not produce greenhouse gases, i.e., they can contribute a large part of the future energy structure without causing global warming

Summary

Introduction

Nuclear fusion is a reaction that combines two or more atom nuclei to form a heavier atom nuclear and other matters (e.g., protons, neutrons, and leptons). Fusion is the process that powers active or main sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars. The deuterium-tritium (D-T) reaction is the most appealing one for confinement fusion power plants among all the fusion processes due to the largest cross-section. Fusion power plants will not produce greenhouse gases, i.e., they can contribute a large part of the future energy structure without causing global warming. The fusion research communities try their best to solve the remaining challenges, which have made lots of progress. In 1958, the first real tokamak device was built [2, 3].

The principle of operation and history of Tokamak

JT-60SA