Diagrams of Indias nuclear fusion reactor SST1 .
The SST-1 is the only Tokamak in the world to operate the toroidal magnets in a two-phase flow. This gives diversified results for a fusion study. One of the great things about fusion reactors is that they use hydrogen and isotopes of hydrogen. This means energy could even be extracted from a glass of water with no harmful byproducts.
An upgraded version SST 2 under development.
In the Indian fusion roadmap, SST-2 fusion reactor is the next device to be built for realizing the reactor technologies and D-T fuel cycle. This device will also serve as the test bed for qualifying reactor components for the Indian DEMO reactor.
The SST-2 reactor is a medium sized device with a low fusion gain (Q = 5). The fusion power output can be from 100 to 300. MW, with appropriate up-gradation of in-vessel components. This device will be realized with existing materials and technologies. The tritium breeding is achieved by having breeding blankets only at the outboard side, while at the inboard side, shielding blankets are placed due to limited space availability. The magnets are superconducting in nature to have steady state operation of plasma.
An integrated design of SST-2 is developed in terms of physics, engineering and neutronic, to assess the over all reactor performance. This analysis will show the possible improvements in the SST2 reactor design to enhance the performance by optimizing the geometrical parameters, plasma parameters, heat removal capability and neutronic performance.