This site links to another site which contains the ITER Team's Final Design Report documents on the newest, reduced size ITER design (R = 6 m.). This information is provided in an accessible form, with the permission of the US-DOE and the ITER Team, as a service to the US fusion community so that US fusion researchers can familiarize themselves with the latest ITER design.

What is ITER?

ITER is the acronym that denotes the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. ITER is to be an international experimental ‘next-step’ magnetic fusion energy research facility to study burning plasmas that has been designed and is now proposed to be constructed and operated by an international collaboration. At the present time, scientists, engineers and administrators from China, Korea, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States are working to advance the ITER project from its present "final-design-completed" phase to construction and eventual operation.

ITER is an experimental fusion facility based on the "tokamak" concept - a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) magnetic configuration that serves to create and maintain the conditions necessary for a largely self-sustained fusion reaction. In doing this, ITER will provide a first-of-kind facility for studying ‘burning plasma physics’ (the scientific aspects of a largely self-heated plasma) and will also demonstrate many fusion energy technologies – such as superconducting magnets and high-heat-flux power handling systems – required to use fusion as a practical energy source.

ITER will be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of an electricity-producing power station and can thus provide a major ‘next-step’ for the advancement of fusion science and technology.

What is Magnetic Fusion Energy?

Magnetic Fusion Energy, often denoted as MFE, describes the use of strong magnetic fields to confine and thermally isolate a deuterium-tritium (D-T) plasma so that it can be heated to temperatures where a self-sustained ‘burn’ will take place. The energy released from this reaction serves to both heat the plasma – and thus sustain the fusion ‘burn’ of the deuterium-tritium fuel – and also produces heat in the regions surrounding the plasma that can ultimately be used to generate electricity via a conventional steam or gas turbine cycle.

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