Fruit
Research has been excellent this week. Not only the bugs in my code have been fixed but also my model has shown physical results very close to observed data. Solving non-linear equations with computers has been a unique learning experience to me, but the physics of this model will help us all understand more about the plasma scrape off layer. This computational model certainly has promise, especially for optimizing real tokamak settings. In fact, my mentor wants me to plan to give the plasma physicists at PPPL a one hour seminar on my findings! As an intern, I'm required to give the other interns, my peers, a 10 minute talk at the end of the summer - but a one hour seminar to professional plasma scientists?! This summer could really turn out to be an interesting one.
I'm posting some pictures on here to help you all get a feel for what fusion devices, like the NSTX (National Spherical Torus Experiment) etc., look like.
Below is a cartoon depticting the collision needed in magnetically confined fusion.
This is outside of NSTX, the large tokamak now being used at PPPL. (Taken from www.pppl.gov)
This is the inside of NSTX. Plasma flows are shaped like a fat doughnut, swirling around in here. (Taken from www.pppl.gov)
Posted at 08:58PM Jul 11, 2008 by jlbarton in General | Comments[0]