When the manuscript was sent to Professor Keriber's email, there was a serious meeting going on in the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory conference room.
Sitting here were big names like Professor Ganser Hesinger, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. There were also people from the Helmholtz Association of German Federations, as well as visiting scholars from the PPPL laboratory, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEAR), the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other ITER project participants.
If Professor Lazerson hadn't resigned from the PPPL, he would be sitting here as well. Because the He3 atom probe technology was playing an increasingly important role in plasma observation, the "He3 project team" had also risen in status.
However, Lazerson wasn't sitting here right now. It was his assistant, Lavern Buscher, a doctor in his thirties. This newcomer was sitting next to a group of big names. He looked a little nervous, and he didn't dare to speak during the meeting.
As for why the meeting was so serious …
It all started last month.
Last month, the Wendelstein 7-X finally completed the installation of the water-cooled divertor.
According to the original plan of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the water-cooled divertor would completely solve the problem of the reaction chamber temperature.
However, the result wasn't as ideal as they had imagined.
The plasma heated to a temperature of 100 million degrees was indeed confined within the electromagnetic field, and the water-cooled divertor worked. However, the speed at which the temperature of the first wall rose exceeded the expectations of the field staff.
A large amount of heat energy accumulated, and the temperature of the first wall material continued to rise. This gradually began to threaten the safety of the stellarator's orbit.
In order to avoid a major safety accident, the staff had to shut down the equipment and terminate the experiment in advance.
In the end, after the installation of the water-cooled divertor, the high-temperature plasma confinement only lasted for six minutes.
Compared to the more than 100 seconds of the tokamak device, which was the mainstream international research direction, this result was quite outstanding.
However, for the stellarator, this result was undoubtedly a failure.
Keriber looked at the research report in his hand and gave a brief report to the experts and scholars around the conference table.
"… The water-cooled divertor has been installed, but the problem now is that the confinement of the plasma isn't as perfect as we thought.
"… According to the feedback data, starting at 227 seconds, a small amount of plasma that was released from the first wall became the main cause of heat accumulation. Eventually, the heat accumulation rate on the first wall material exceeded the cooling efficiency of the water-cooled divertor and exceeded our expectations."
After listening to Keriber's report, Professor Erdall from the Helmholtz Association of Economic Research suddenly spoke.
"So you're saying that the problem isn't with the water-cooled divertor, but the plasma in the stellarator is out of control?"
Even though the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory was a research facility at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the entire research facility, including the stellarator, was jointly built by the Max Planck Institute and the Helmholtz Association for German Research.
As the second largest scientific research organization in Germany after the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association of German Institutes of Technology was quite influential in the field of fusion energy.
"It's not out of control, it's the natural divergence of the plasma. Even a star can't make every plasma run in an orderly manner. There will always be a few plasma that hit the first wall, and this is an acceptable error," Keriber emphasized in response to the question from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.
Professor Erdall raised his eyebrows and said, "Only a few?"
Keriber: "… That's just an analogy, I obviously can't give you a specific number. I can only tell you that compared to the mainstream Marktok device, our magnetic confinement is already very good. "
Seeing that the two were about to argue, Professor Hesinger coughed and interrupted their argument.
"The problem is very clear. What we have to do now is to solve the problem, not continue to argue about meaningless things."
Professor Hesinger paused for a second and spoke.
"We have two choices now. One is to change the current control scheme, and the other is to change our cooling system."
Either they could use more precise electromagnetic field control to reduce the plasma on the first wall, or they could replace it with a more powerful water-cooled divertor to improve the cooling performance.
"It's probably difficult to improve the current control scheme." Professor Keriber shook his head and said, "If there was a better control scheme, we would have used it a long time ago."
Buscher, who didn't have a chance to speak, said, "What about replacing the water-cooled divertor?"
"That's not realistic. Even if we modify the existing foundation, it's still impossible." Professor Hesinger shook his head and said, "The problem now is that we have to fulfill our 30-minute promise before 2020 … And we only have two years at most."
The atmosphere in the conference room was a bit heavy, and no one spoke.
Just like Professor Hesinger said, time was the key.
The water-cooled divertor wasn't like a refrigerator. Every step of the millimeter or even micron scale project was ridiculously difficult. It wasn't easy to reassemble it, let alone redesign the device.
From 2015 until now, they spent a whole three years to install the water-cooled divertor on the Wendelstein 7-X.
Now that there were only two years left until 2020, they didn't have the time to spend another three years redesigning and reassembling the water-cooled divertor.
Honestly speaking, it was a stupid thing to set a specific time limit for science.
Even the most authoritative person in a certain field couldn't predict how long it would take for a certain technology to be developed.
It could be born tomorrow, or it could be fundamentally wrong.
But if they didn't do that, if they didn't continue to draw this picture, no one would invest in them …
…
The time was 12 o 'clock, and the meeting was temporarily dismissed. It was scheduled to continue after two o' clock in the afternoon.
Keriber was sitting in the cafeteria on the first floor of the laboratory. He ordered a cup of coffee and sat by the window. He opened his laptop and habitually logged into his email.
"Review invitation?"
Keriber looked at the email in his mailbox and raised his eyebrows with interest.
Strictly speaking, he wasn't a plasma physicist. He was an engineer in the field of plasma physics and fusion energy.
Also, compared to the mainstream tokamak device, the stellarator was considered a "unpopular" research direction. There weren't many international research institutes in this area.
The last time he received a review invitation from a journal under the American Physical Society was five years ago.
Keriber didn't plan on using the break time between meetings to review the thesis, but he couldn't help but be curious. He clicked on the thesis.
Even though he wasn't a plasma physicist, he had worked at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics for a long time, so he wasn't unfamiliar with theoretical things. He had the ability to review papers.
Mathematical model of plasma turbulence?
Professor Keriber looked at the abstract of the thesis and raised his eyebrows.
Phenomenological model?
But it doesn't seem like it.
After Professor Keriber finished reading the abstract, he continued to read the main body of the thesis. When he saw the large number of formulas in the thesis, his eyebrows twitched.
As an engineer, knowledge of mathematics was essential. However, the formulas in the thesis were beyond the scope of his knowledge, and it made his scalp tingle.
Speaking of which, it's just building a phenomenological model, does it really need to use such a complicated mathematical method?
While Professor Keriber was confused about this matter, this "style" of writing reminded him of someone.
Keriber flipped to the author's page, and his eyebrows twitched.
I knew it …
Keriber smiled and shook his head. He completely gave up and skipped over the complicated formulas. He then looked at the mathematical model in the conclusion section.
He had to admit that he didn't think much of it at first.
However, the more he read, the more solemn his expression became.
Suddenly, a flash of joy appeared on his face, and he couldn't wait to take out his phone.
"Iger, I'll send an email to your email in a bit. Print out the thesis for me!"
Iger was his office assistant, and he handed over the general schedule, printing, and other chores to him.
In principle, it wasn't good to publish a thesis that hadn't been officially published. However, if it was just an internal communication, it wasn't against the principle.
After all, for many reviewers, if they saw a particularly good thesis that happened to involve a field that they didn't understand, it wasn't uncommon for them to exchange opinions with their peers.
Iger: "Okay, sir, can you tell me how many copies you need?"
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