Experts meet to elaborate details of new blueprint
In accordance with the overall baseline approach established by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Council, the Research Plan must be refined and checked for consistency with the foreseen configuration of the tokamak and its ancillary systems. A group of experts, nominated by the Members, met in February to define the details of the new blueprint for achieving ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ’s research goals.
At its November 2024 meeting, the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Council endorsed the overall approach of the new baseline based on the Members’ analysis of the new baseline documentation submitted by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ. This documentation included a high-level description of the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Research Plan, known as Level-1 in the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ documentation system, which is approved by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Director-General following endorsement by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Council. Level-1 was developed under the coordination of the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ by a group of experts including ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ staff and experts from the Members.
Following the outcome of the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Council meeting in November 2024, the group of experts was reconvened to further elaborate the details of the Research Plan down to Level-2 and Level-3 beginning with teleconference meetings in early December. Level-2 describes the Research Plan and medium-level configuration details of the tokamak and its ancillary systems that are under configuration control, meaning that any modification to these details may require a project change request, and impact on hardware must be evaluated by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ in coordination with the Domestic Agencies. Level-3 of the Research Plan addresses details concerning the use of the tokamak and ancillary systems with no impact on configuration control.
To finalize the detailing of the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Research Plan down to Levels 2 and 3, an in-person meeting of the expert group was held at the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ headquarters from 25-27 February 2025. During this meeting, the experts from the Members were updated on the design refinements of key systems for the Research Plan, including diagnostics, heating and current drive, first wall, fuel cycle, and others. Detailed discussions were conducted to finalize the Research Plan’s objectives and experimental strategies for each experimental campaign defining the experimental blocks, duration and temporal execution.
Extensive discussions ensured consistency across all research campaigns as well as alignment with the installed tokamak and ancillary systems for each campaign. The discussions also covered non-tokamak research activities directly linked to the Research Plan such as the Neutral Beam Test Facility and Test Blanket Module research plans.
Following this recent meeting of the expert group, participants have commenced writing the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Research Plan down to Levels 2 and 3. The final document, encompassing both levels, will be submitted for review by the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Science and Technology Committee (STAC) at its meeting in May 2025.