I am interested in trying to determine why existing tokamaks (toroidal magnetic fusion reactors) use tori with the aspect ratios that they do. To determine this, I intend to model the electric and magnetic fields (and D and H) of a solid toroidal conductor with a current flowing through it, and to examine how these fields change when the aspect ratio is varied. I will chose the material properties of the conductor based on fusion plasmas in operating reactors. Modeling the plasma as a solid seems reasonable due to the fact that tokamak plasmas do not change shape significantly during operation, and, other than some fluid dynamics disturbances, the plasma is relatively stable.
Thank you! There are a several operational experimental tokamaks, and one very noteworthy one currently under construction. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, in France, is the biggest and most expensive fusion experiment to date, and it is currently at the forefront of magnetic confinement fusion research. My thesis compares magnetic and inertial confinement fusion reactors, and I thought it would be interesting to explore more thoroughly the basis for these reactor designs. Most magnetic fusion reactors use some sort of toroidal geometry so that there are no “ends” to the plasma volume (this minimizes energy loss) but not all reactors have used similarly shaped tori. Beyond size, the parameter that seems to vary the most is the aspect ratio: the ratio of the major to minor radii (the radius of the tube and the radius of the ring that is the tube). I’m going to try to base the current in my model off of values for the ITER tokamak.
It will be interesting to know what physical parameters of the aspect ratio consists of. Also, are tokamaks in operation? Are they common? Why did you choose a tokamak for this project?