Summary of the workshop on technological aspects of steady-state devices

The major contributions to this workshop came from TORE-SUPRA, TPX, LHD and W7-X (two tokamaks, one heliotron and a stellarator). All four devices are of similar size and designed for a similar range of parameters and, in particular, they address the same target - steady-state plasma operation. TORE-SUPRA is a circular cross section tokamak, LHD is designed with optimized continuous coils and provides a helical divertor, TPX and W7-X incorporate strongly-shaped geometries to improve confinement and stability and optimize the bootstrap current. In TPX, the system is optimized for a large bootstrap current, in W7-X for basically no bootstrap current. Also the heating systems are designed for the specific purpose of steady-state operation. TORE-SUPRA is in operation, LHD is near completion; W7-X has recently (after the workshop) been approved; TPX is still in the approval phase. Superconducting coil material is NbTi for TORE-SUPRA, LHD and W7-X and Nb3Sn for TPX. The TF-coils of TORE-SUPRA (1.8 K, superfluid He) and the helical coil of LHD (4.2 K for the first part of experiments with 3 T) are bath-cooled. Cable-in-conduit conductors are used in the other SC coils. Largely different solutions are selected for the SC cable composition. Except for TPX, which has a double-null poloidal field divertor matched to the strong plasma shaping, most of the steady-state devices have a very flexible plasma edge configuration: islands or ergodic boundaries (W7-X, TORE-SUPRA, LHD), limiter (TORE-SUPRA), helical divertor (LHD, W7-X). The status of plasma equilibrium control, high heat flux materials and activation problems were also discussed. Power plant studies based on different steady-state confinement concepts were presented and confronted with a summary on the PULSAR study based on pulsed systems.