A brief history of

the JET project

man
Height 13 m
Acknowledgements
JET was designed by a team led by P. H. Rebut
R. J. Bickerton, scientific director, encouraged many UKAEA
Culham based scientists (including myself) to join the JET Joint
Undertaking
Many graphs and pictures have been obtained from the new
JET/EFDA databases (K. Musgrave) containing graphs and
images Copyright protected by UKAEA/EFDA
The JET/EFDA intranet
Old colleagues still at JET, P. D. Morgan, E. M. Jones P.
J. Lomas have helped refresh my memory

Jes Christiansen Culham Nov. 2005
CONTENT OF TALK
Summary of the JET projects history 1971-1999
Building the JET tokamak
Scientific milestones in the JET projest
Diagnostics & data
Scientific records results obtained in JET pulses
D-T campaign autumn 1997
The future

Literature:
[1] A European experiment, D. Willson, Adam Hilger Ltd. (1981)
[2] Journal of Fusion Technology, Volume 11 (1987) dedicated to H. O. Wster
[3] European experiment in Fusion, E. N. Shaw, North Holland (1990)
[4] The Science of JET, J. Wesson JET-R(99)13.


A brief history of JET: the beginning
1971: The Euratom Groupe de Liason proposes that a very large
tokamak should be built. Calculations suggest that a mega-ampere
multi square metre cross section tokamak should reach ignition
1973: A team of 56 engineers and physicists

is established at
Culham with the task of designing the Joint European Torus.
Design is completed in autumn 1975 and described in EUR-JET-R5
report
1976-1978: Political disagreement over the siting of JET. A SAS
mission to a hijacked German plane seals an agreement. Autumn
1978 The JET Joint Undertaking is created at Culham
The JET Joint Undertaking between EURATOM and UKAEA
becomes the largest scientific project in Europe apart from CERN
and ESA. Expected project period 1978-1990!

M. L . Watkins is the only design team member left at JET

What is a joint undertaking?
In 1978 no one at Culham really knew or understood what a joint
undertaking was. JET has been called a lot of names since then
The Joint European Tours
The joint undertakers
etc.
We learned later that a Joint Undertaking by the Commission
implies an institution without autonomy, i.e. no mainframe
computer, no restaurant, no library, no tearooms
Torus hall 1979-80: basement has 60 000 t concrete
Several thousand
lorry loads of
concrete in autum 79
A brief history of JET: the building and extensions
1979: Bulldozers and concrete mixers arrive. The JET team grows to
some 650 members (260 UKAEA + 200 EURATOM + contractors).
1983: JET completed on time and to budget (~ 120M basic form)
1983-92: Experimental campaigns. Results presented to three
governing JET councils
1989: JET extended until 1992. A second extension until 1994 is itself
extended to 1996
1995: The final extension until 2000 marks the end of a sustained
prolongation
1998: The British staff case: Commission loses Court case The
first 100 Euratom employees leave JET. In 1999: The last 100
Euratom employees leave. End of The Joint Undertaking EFDA
CONTENT OF TALK
Summary of the JET projects history 1971-1999
Building the JET tokamak
Scientific milestones in the JET projest
Diagnostics & data
Scientific records results obtained in JET pulses
D-T campaign autumn 1997
The future


One of two flywheel generators 700MW to JET
At 300 rpm it would reach Newbury if let loose vertically!
One generator got stuck and put the project in danger. The
Deputy Director P. H. Rebut fortunately found a way out.
Tokamak assembly starts 1982
One complete octant of
vessel section, 4 TF coils
and mechanical structure
weighs just under 150 t
such that the main crane
can move it into the torus
hall. First octant took 6
hours to move, last one
hour (steep learning
curve)
The last octant slides into place between two limbs
A lot of expensive jigs and
tools were used just once
to assemble the tokamak
The inside of the JET vessel in 1983 contained only a limiter
Limiter
Porthole
In-vessel workers could
enter vessel through
portholes to carry out
repairs, clean up
surfaces, install new
components. No special
suits and breathing
apparatus required
20 years later only the robot arm could enter for repairs
PINIs removed from Neutral injection box
Plug In Neutral
Injectors on JET
were difficult to
plug in. They have
been operated
with H, D, T, He
3
,
He
4
at energies
from 80 to 160
keV. Maximum
total power to
plasma from two
boxes each with 8
PINIs: 23MW


Installation of first ICRH antenna 1985
The first limiter
could be moved by
manually cranking
a handle outside
the vessel
CONTENT OF TALK
Summary of the JET projects history 1971-1999
Building the JET tokamak
Scientific milestones in the JET projest
Diagnostics & data
Scientific records results obtained in JET pulses
D-T campaign autumn 1997
The future



Scientific milestones in the JET project (1)
1983: First plasma pulse with 15kA current in June
1984: ECE T
e
profiles. Scientists can now see what is going on
1985: ICRH antennae delivering up to 2MW
1986: First NBI beam box
1986: Separatrix plasma discovered during current decay H-mode
1987: The L-mode year, Belt limiter, no NBI
1988: 7MA pulse 17797, world record (P. J. Lomas). Beryllium
1989: The H-mode year, 2 NBI boxes, high speed pellet injector
1989: Full performance: pulse 20983, hot ion ELM free H-mode

Day 1: Directors waiting for first plasma
16 kA for
50msec
HO Wster
PH Rebut
A Saturday
in June 1983
Scientific milestones in the JET project (2)
Oct. 1990: Lower hybrid heating installed
Oct. 1991: PTE, worlds first man made controlled release of fusion
power: 1MW during 2s ELM free period in pulse 26148
1992-1994: Shutdown Feb. 92-Mar.94 for installation of Mk.I impurity
divertor. Four internal divertor coils wound inside torus!
1995-1996: The divertor years. Edge, SOL, divertor physics boom
Oct. 1997: DTE, Full fusion power release of 16MW in pulse 42976
Mar. 1998: Mk II power divertor installed by JETs in house state of
the art robot arm
Apr. 1999: Last pulse 48382. Data from more than 20 0000 plasma
pulses in the JET data storage system
20 years on: different vessel, different performance
Volume 120 m
3
, I

4 MA, B

4 T, P 20MW, t
pulse
20sec
Hot plasma
The JET team
Almost half of the JET team came from Europe and were mostly
Euratom employees
The UKAEA employees came from Culham (fusion), Harwell
(diagnostics), Winfrith (shift technicians), CERN(computing)
During the construction phase the were many contractors
The project would provide for many facilities for team members
both for work and socially , e.g. golf club
From 1983 a team spirit developed: many team members would
work long hours and at weekends. Many repairs done during the
night such that JET was ready next morning

The JET operations
Operations included: 1) planning session; 2) coordination meeting;
3) eight hour control room session
Control room sessions could be tense. Some dedicated team
members became control room junkies
The average number of plasma pulses per day during 2 shifts is 20.
The record is 48. The cost per pulse ~ 20 000, so no goofs!
Control room observations control room speech JET jargon
at the next JET Physics-Science Meeting.
The overhead projection of progress became the hub of the JET
project. Big events e.g. 7MA or 20MW+, would generate a buzz in
the control room which would soon fill up

CONTENT OF TALK
Summary of the JET projects history 1971-1999
Building the JET tokamak
Scientific milestones in the JET projest
Diagnostics & data
Scientific records results obtained in JET pulses
D-T campaign autumn 1997
The future



Big Science: the 14 MeV neutron spectrometer
This concrete shielding results
in a massive weight and yields a
collimated view of the plasma
(M. Loughlin)
The 53 JET diagnostics produce: 0.2Mb (1983), 10Gb (2000) data.
JET can not be operated without the magnetic diagnostic (control).
JET diagnostics: complexities
In the early 1980es the starting cost of a diagnostic was in excess of
1M and would take one year + to complete because of complexities,
space and routing of cables
A wooden scale model (1:20 3D) was used in addition to drawings to
ensure there was access to diagnostic and no clashes with other parts
of JET. of wooden model now in Science Museum!
In the late 1980es the IBM CAD system catia was used by the
drawing office
Each diagnostic would normally be manned by a group of two to
five scientists. An RO (Responsible Officer) would validate the data
Two examples of JET diagnostics

T
e
by Thomson scattering (on JET)
In the JET vessel a
photon torpedo 10 cm
(300picosec) long
moves through the
plasma and scattered
photons are recorded
as I(t) T
e
(R)
The optical length
from plasma to roof
top laboratory is 25m
T
i
by charge exchange: D
0
+D
+
D
+
+D
0
+hv
JET
Emitted radiation hv via optical fibres to CCD cameras T
i
(R)
JET diagnostics: data recording
Each diagnostic transmitted analogue signals to CAMAC crates
outside the torus hall.
Digitised signals were transmitted via optical fibres to computers:
1983 NORSK 100, 1992 SUN sparc workstations, i.e. no electrical
connection to tokamak
All data was stored in the JPF (Jet Pulse File)
A suite of analysis programs read the JPF and produced PPF
(Processed Pulse File). Results from inter-shot analysis shown on
screens between pulses some 10 to 15 minutes after pulse.
In 1983 this was the worlds first fully integrated data analysis in
fusion research and became the session guidance tool

The JET Intershot analysis and Storage system
integrates the data from all diagnostics into one file
The role of JET data locally & internationally
Data in the CPF, Central Physics File, would show e.g.
Gradual degradation of window transmission of light
Co vs Counter NBI differences
Interferometer vs LIDAR differences
General trends in confinement physics
Data from the CPF would constitute a major part of the
international Tokamak data bases established in 1990 and onwards
At the end of the JET project the data is still there for analysis
Examples of JET Data from PPF and CPF wil now illustrate the
diversity of scientific experiments carried out

Distribution of JET data from > 20 000 pulses
one data point x per pulse f(x)
Electron
temperature
RF power
Plasma
energy
Pulse rate
Lunch Dinner breaks
Plasma-performance parameters in JET have
been stretched by an impressive factor of 10
The JET Monster sawtooth sawteeth stabilised
crash
Costley, Bartlett, Campbell
of the ECE group supplied
plenty of monsters
Edge physics of ELM types I & III. The LH & H L transitions and hysteresis
Edge n
e
[10
19
m
-3
]
Pellet injection snake as m=1 density perturbation
The soft x-ray emission reveals
(A.Weller 1988) the snake as a
perturbation following a pellet
making it to the q

=1 surface
Many pellets many snakes PEP mode
With multiple pellets injected the
density profile will peak. Additional
heat (NBI & ICRH) yield an improved
fusion performance because of the
n
2
T
2
dependence of P
fusion

At t=5s the plasma current is
still rising transient effect
Edge & SOL physics has been studied with probe array and IR
imaging since the MK.I divertor was installed in 1992. Later new
divertor geometries were tried with a divertor cryo-pump
Tomographic reconstruction (a) of soft x-ray emission shows
precursor instability to a disruption; (b) shows the theoretically
calculated form of the instability.
CONTENT OF TALK
Summary of the JET projects history 1971-1999
Building the JET tokamak
Scientific milestones in the JET projest
Diagnostics, data analysis
Scientific records results obtained in JET pulses
D-T campaign autumn 1997
The future



The D-T experiments October 1997
Careful planning began early 1997. Safety the major issue
The Tritium inventory arrived in a U
238
bed from which it could be
extracted by heating and to which it could be returned
A major feature of the DT campaign involved keeping track of the
Tritium inventory. Models of T absorption in carbon tiles were
developed
The campaign demonstrated that JET could be operated like a
future fusion reactor
A measure of disappointment with the reaction of the world press
Dedicated issues of Nuclear Fusion (vol 39 nos 2, 3, 8) include
several JET articles describing features of these experiments
World record fusion power: JET pulse 42976 Oct. 1997
We had to wait fourteen years for these experiments!
Careful analysis with
the TRANSP code by
B. Balet & P.
Stubberfield yield
excellent agreement
with measured data
after 935 runs!
Pulse is a non steady
state hot-ion H-mode
terminated by a giant
ELM. Plasma energy
is also a record.


16MW fusion power
from 22MW input
during 0.35sec
Thermonuclear fusion power calculations by TRANSP
Power densities in the
(50%)D (50%)T pulse
42976 show P
fusion
~ P
input

Electron power balance
reveals first detectable P
o
.
The crowning achievement of
the JET project!
The JET o heating experiments
In a controlled series
of experiments (P.E.
Thomas) the Tritium
concentration is varied
from 0 to 80%. The o
heating of the
electrons, i.e. AT
e
, is
the first demonstration
of its kind. Great
experimental care is
required: constant
power, start density
etc.
AT
e


JET provides key data for the ITER design as regards size,
plasma shape, confinement scaling, DT operation
Cross section of present EU D-
shape tokamaks compared to
the ITER project
JET
ITER
JETs achievements
JET was built on time and to budget
JET is the largest tokamak in the world and since
1983 it has set most fusion records. The JET project
has an excellent safety record
JETs predicted performance parameters have all
been exceeded except the most important one: Q
fusion

It is the only existing device to use D, T, Be and
observe fusion neutrons
Robot technology has proved that remote
maintenance of a tokamak reactor is possible
1990: remove one octant to replace TF coil
When a TF coil failed several
engineers and scientists predicted
gloom and doom for the JET
project. It was therefore a major
achievement to saw up the
vessel, remove an octant,
disassemble it and change the
faulty TF coil.

Has any other fusion device
been subject to this treatment?
Lessons learnt
European collaboration at the G level is of benefit to multi-
disciplinary projects like JET: different problem solving approaches
but all in English!
In-house products: state of the art (software, robotics, diagnostics)
The JET scientist-engineer collaboration with European industry
was an outstanding success considering that almost all products were
one off and certainly not off the shelf!
Lack of slow bureaucracy allowed for rapid changes to program
A G project should be staffed by only project team members
interacting with contractors
A successor to JET, proposed by Rebut and Bickerton 1989, should
have started at the latest 1995. Ten years lost
When?
Fusion
Power
Typical Pulse
duration
Q
1997 16MW 0.3 seconds 0.65
6MW 6 seconds 0.2


2015-2020 500-700MW 30 minutes 10



2030/40 1.5-2GW days/steady state 30
The future JET will one day become a green site

[South Oxford District Council: planning permission 1979]
1985