Design of the Burning Plasma Experiment Vacuum Vessel

The Burning Plasma Experiment (BPX) is being designed to determine the physics behavior of self‐heated fusion plasmas and demonstrate the production of substantial amounts of fusion power. The machine is designed to operate with a plasma current of 11.8 MA and a toroidal field of 9 T. The machine will have a major radius of 2.59 m and will have a fusion power of 100–500 MW. The interior surface area of the vessel is about 150 m2. The high power density on the divertor plates requires the use of pyrolytic graphite. Most of the remainder of the metallic surface of the vessel is covered with either carbon fiber composite or graphite tiles. The operating temperature of the vacuum vessel is chosen to be 350 °C because of the good experience of JET and JT‐60 with graphite tiles and operation at similar temperatures. The high plasma current, large stored energy, and large toroidal field give rise to large forces on the vacuum vessel during plasma current disruptions. These forces, together with the operating tem...