Casper attracted to magnetic fusion experiment

LLNL researcher Tom Casper of the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate was recently selected for a senior position with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Cadarache, France. Casper is scheduled to begin his new job as scientific officer, Equilibrium and Control, Fusion Science and Technology on March 2.

The ITER Organization was formed to design, construct and operate the ITER magnetic confinement fusion experiment. It has seven "member nations", the USA, the European Union (EUROATOM), the Russian Federation, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea and India. Construction began last year.

"It’s very interesting and challenging work," Casper said. "I get to concentrate more on research I have recently been involved with and I will make contributions to the ITER program and to fusion energy research.

"I have been working with members of the ITER FS&T group for the past couple of years and this has worked out quite well for me and they are a good bunch of folks to work with," he said. "As for moving to Southern France, Provence is about as nice an area as anyone can find to live in. My wife and I are quite excited about the opportunity to live in Europe for a while and Aix-en-Provence is a particularly interesting place to go."

As a scientific officer, Casper will be doing simulations and computations to explore the capabilities of the ITER device and studying equilibria needed for ITER to meet its performance specifications. He also will develop control and plasma scenarios that meet the plasma control and operational requirements. These have implications on the performance of superconducting magnets, power supplies and the plasma control system. He will be integrating R&D and analysis results from member nations and defining a program of experimental and modeling activities to further the development of ITER plasma scenarios and control capabilities.

"The work at ITER is a direct result of work I have been involved with in the Magnetic Fusion Energy program here at the Lab since I joined the Lab many years ago," Casper said. "The ITER experiment is the next step in the world magnetic fusion energy program and is a much larger version of the existing tokamaks like DIII-D (a General Atomics National Fusion Facility)."

The Laboratory has a long history of involvement with the ITER design effort over the years. A few researchers are directly involved with the construction effort that recently started.

In addition, Casper said that many LLNL scientists have been doing experiments and modeling in direct support of the needs for ITER R&D.