ASDEX Upgrade

One innovative feature of the ASDEX Upgrade experiment is its all-tungsten first wall; tungsten is a good choice for the first wall of a tokamak because of its very high melting point (over 3000 degrees Celsius) which enables it to stand up to the very high heat fluxes emanating from the hot plasma at the heart of the tokamak; however there are also problems associated with a tungsten first wall, such as tungsten's tendency to ionise at high temperatures, "polluting" the plasma and diluting the deuterium-tritium fuel mix.

Furthermore, as a high Z material, radiation from fully ionized tungsten in the plasma is several orders of magnitude higher than that of other proposed first wall components such as carbon fibre composites (CFCs) or beryllium.

ASDEX Upgrade will examine ways to overcome this problem, in preparation for the construction of ITER's first wall.

Three large flywheel generators feed the 580 MVA pulsed power supply system for the magnetic confinement and plasma heating.

[2] In 1991, it was dismantled by personnel of the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP), transported to Chengdu, China, and its main components were used to build the HL-2A.