SCR-1 explained

SCR-1
Fullname:Stellarator of Costa Rica 1
Imagetitle:SCR-1 vacuum vessel and coil structure
Type:Stellarator
City:Cartago
Country:Costa Rica
Affiliation:Costa Rica Institute of Technology
Major Radius: (device)
140 mm (plasma)
Minor Radius:100 mm (device)
42.2 mm (plasma)
Operation Start Year:2016
Ongoing:yes

The Stellarator of Costa Rica 1 (or SCR-1) is a small modular stellarator for the magnetic confinement of plasma located at Cartago, Costa Rica. It is developed by the plasmaTEC group of the Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications at Costa Rica Institute of Technology.[1] [2] It began operation as Latin America's first stellarator on 29 June 2016.[3] [4]

SCR-1 is of a compact design and has the distinction of having the smallest aspect ratio of any operating stellarator device (>4.4). Its design is influenced by the small Spanish stellarator UST-1.[5]

History

In 2010, SCR-1 was originally proposed to be much bigger in size (major radius of 460.33 mm, plasma radius of 42.2 mm) and scale (aspect ratio of 5.7, magnetic field of 0.0878 Tesla), and was expected to complete in 2011.

However, the development of SCR-1 took five years (between 2011 and 2015) to complete.[6]

Notes and References

  1. Mora. J.. Vargas. V. I.. Otarola. C.. Piedra. C.. Jimenez. W.. Esquivel. L.. Esquivel. R.. Sanchez. K.. Gonzalez. J.. 2015. Engineering of the Stellarator of Costa Rica: SCR-1. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. en. 591. 1. 012017. 10.1088/1742-6596/591/1/012017. 2015JPhCS.591a2017M. 1742-6596. free. 2238/7213. free.
  2. Book: Vargas. V.I.. Mora. J.. Otarola. C.. Zamora. E.. Asenjo. J.. Mora. A.. Villalobos. E.. 2015 IEEE 26th Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE) . Implementation of stellarator of Costa Rica 1 SCR-1 . 2015-05-31. en-US. IEEE. 1–6. 10.1109/sofe.2015.7482321. 9781479982646. 2238/9819. 24317018. free.
  3. Web site: SCR-1 stellarator in Costa Rica produces its first plasma. www.ipp.mpg.de. 2018-08-03.
  4. News: Costa Rica makes nuclear fusion history with plasma discharge. The Tico Times Costa Rica. 2018-08-03. en-US.
  5. Barillas. L.. Vargas. V. I.. Alpizar. A.. Asenjo. J.. Carranza. J. M.. Cerdas. F.. Gutiérrez. R.. Monge. J. I.. Mora. J.. 2014. SCR-1: Design and Construction of a Small Modular Stellarator for Magnetic Confinement of Plasma. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. en. 511. 1. 012037. 10.1088/1742-6596/511/1/012037. 2014JPhCS.511a2037B. 1742-6596. free.
  6. Web site: Stellarator. plasma.ietec.org. 2018-08-03. 2018-04-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20180430043914/http://plasma.ietec.org/stellerator.php. dead.