TFTR Celebrates First Plasma 1982

Thirty years ago at 3:06 am December 24, 1982, TFTR produced its first plasma, thus completing the official construction project after seven years of construction.  TFTR went on to operate for 15 years and increased the fusion power gain by a factor of 1 million over the value when it was designed in 1975 to a value of 0.3 in 1995. Other TFTR milestones included:  the first tokamak to use power plant DT fuel, first measurements of alpha-heating by the fusion reaction, record fusion fuel temperatures of 45 keV (500 million° C), and fusion power exceeding 10 million watts.  Using advanced diagnostics, TFTR made numerous contributions to the understanding of plasma physics at the frontier of fusion plasma physics. The US fusion budget was cut by 35% in 1996 forcing the termination of TFTR experiments on April 4, 1997.  The total cost of the TFTR Project (design, construction, operation and decommissioning) was $1.6 B.  (see also PPPL News)

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