TEXTOR
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Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
Date
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ITER might be paving the way to commercial fusion, but what of those who paved the way for ITER? TEXTOR, a fusion experiment run by Forschungszentrum Jülich, operated for three whole decades. Primarily built to study the interactions of the plasma with the material of the vacuum vessel, it made lasting contributions to fusion as we now know it. For example, the decision to use tungsten as the first wall material in ITER is partly based on research done by TEXTOR.
Ultimately though, the field of fusion progressed to where TEXTOR could not follow. Never built to achieve the densities and temperatures of large-scale fusion reactors, it could not investigate the issues related to operating in such a regime. And so all things must end. This month five years ago, on the 4th of December at 6 o'clock in the evening, it was fired up for the very last time.