Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak

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The Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak, or MAST experiment is a nuclear fusion experiment in operation at Culham, Oxfordshire, England since December 1999. It follows the highly successful START experiment (1991 - 1998). MAST uses the same innovative spherical tokamak design as START, which has shown itself to be more efficient than the conventional toroidal design, adopted by JET and ITER. START proved to exceed even the most optimistic predictions and the purpose of MAST is to confirm the results of its forerunner by using a larger more purpose-built experiment.

It is fully commissioned by EURATOM/UKAEA and took two years to design and a further two years to construct. It includes a neutral beam injector similar to that used on START and uses the same merging compression technique instead of the conventional direct induction. Merging compression provides a valuable saving of central solenoid flux, which can then be used to further ramp up the plasma current and/or maintain the required current flat-top.

The stated objectives of MAST are:

Studies in a new regime, to provide improved understanding of tokamaks, and improved ITER design (e.g. effects of plasma shaping).
To investigate the potential of the spherical tokamak route to fusion power.

Fusion power v • d • e
Atomic nucleus \| Nuclear fusion \| Nuclear power \| Nuclear reactor \| Timeline of nuclear fusion Plasma physics \| Magnetohydrodynamics \| Neutron flux \| Fusion energy gain factor \| Lawson criterion
Methods of fusing nuclei
Magnetic confinement: Tokamak - Spheromak - Stellarator - Reversed field pinch - Field-Reversed Configuration - Levitated Dipole Inertial confinement: Laser driven - Z-pinch - Bubble fusion (acoustic confinement) - Fusor (electrostatic confinement) Other forms of fusion: Muon-catalyzed fusion - Pyroelectric fusion - Migma - Cold fusion(disputed)
List of fusion experiments
Magnetic confinement devices ITER (International) \| JET (European) \| JT-60 (Japan) \| Large Helical Device (Japan) \| KSTAR (Korea) \| EAST (China) \| T-15 (Russia) \| DIII-D (USA) \| Tore Supra (France) \| ASDEX Upgrade (Germany) \| TFTR (USA) \| NSTX (USA) \| NCSX (USA) \| Alcator C-Mod (USA) \| LDX (USA) \| H-1NF (Australia) \| MAST (UK) \| START (UK) \| Wendelstein 7-X (Germany) \| TCV (Switzerland) \| DEMO (Commercial) Inertial confinement devices Laser driven: NIF (USA) \| OMEGA laser (USA) \| Nova laser (USA) \| Novette laser (USA) \| Nike laser (USA) \| Shiva laser (USA) \| Argus laser (USA) \| Cyclops laser (USA) \| Janus laser (USA) \| Long path laser (USA) \| 4 pi laser (USA) \| LMJ (France) \| GEKKO XII (Japan) \| ISKRA lasers (Russia) \| Vulcan laser (UK) \| Asterix IV laser (Czech Republic) \| HiPER laser (European) Non-laser driven: Z machine (USA) \| PACER (USA) See also: International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility