Twelve-tonne lift advances UK fusion upgrade

Engineers at Culham have lowered a 12-tonne stainless-steel vessel into position for a major upgrade to Britain’s MAST Upgrade fusion experiment.

The double-decker box will hold two additional neutral-beam injectors, which fire high-energy atoms into plasma. UKAEA expects the finished system to double neutral-beam heating power from 4.4 to 8.8 megawatts and raise accessible plasma temperatures from about 30 million to 60 million degrees Celsius.

The lift is one completed step in a wider engineering programme. Teams are also repurposing power equipment from the retired JET experiment, building the beam line and cryopump, and installing a microwave heating system. EUROfusion describes MAST Upgrade as one of Europe’s medium-sized machines for testing plasma physics relevant to larger reactors.

This is research infrastructure, not electricity generation. Major hardware is due to be fitted by autumn 2027, with experiments planned for 2028, so the predicted performance is still unproven. For now, a difficult piece of heavy engineering is safely in place and opens a larger experimental range.

Sources

• UK Atomic Energy Authority — double beam box installation
• EUROfusion — role of medium-sized tokamaks