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At Durham University we have world class activities involved in critical technologies for fusion. The Durham contribution to completing the road-map for fusion energy is focused on confining, understanding and controlling the plasma using large superconducting magnets and in diagnosing the physical state of the plasma using multiple real-time experimental diagnostics in order to achieve a stable source of fusion energy generation.

Durham is one of the founding institutes of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Fusion Science and Technology. The CDT is led from York, with partners at Durham, Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford. It has hosted over 20 Durham PhD students working mainly in the areas of fusion diagnostics and superconductivity.

Durham also has provided comprehensive characterisation measurements on the superconducting strands being used in the ITER magnet system and is conducting experimental and theoretical research into superconducting joints for fusion energy applications. Durham is also the UK representative of the European magnet technology experts reporting to ITER and is investigating the properties of fusion plasma for the ITER tokamak.

Find out more about the types of measurements provided by Durham for ITER.

Key Areas of Research

  • High magnetic field measurements on low and high temperature superconductors.
  • Fabricating high-field superconductors.
  • Computational and theoretical understanding of superconductors.
  • Optimization of high-field superconductors.
  • Development of advanced instrumentation diagnostics of magnetically confined fusion plasmas.
  • Efficient handling, control and feedback of large volumes of real-time data.
  • Diagnostics for MAST-U at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
  • Systems design for toroidal magnet field systems for cost-effective fusion energy.

Facilities

 

Key Researchers

Staff

Research Area

Damian Hampshire

Head of the Superconductivity Research Group and the Superconductor Characterisation High-field Laboratories for measurements on technological materials for fusion energy, medical devices and other large-scale applications.

Ray Sharples

Advanced instrumentation for fusion plasma diagnostics.

Mark J. Raine

Research Fellow and Manager of the Superconductor Characterisation High-field Laboratories.

 

 

Featured Projects

 

Key Partners

ITER https://www.iter.org/

Fusion for Energy, https://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/

UKAEA, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-atomic-energy-authority

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/

University of York, https://www.york.ac.uk/

Jefferson laboratory, https://www.jlab.org/

Oak Ridge laboratory, https://www.ornl.gov/

Siemens, https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/en-uk/medical-imaging

Oxford Instruments, https://www.oxinst.com/

Luvata, https://www.luvata.com/

Tokamak Energy, https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/