Dr. J.W. Davis
University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies
4925 Dufferin St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T6
email: jwdavis(at)starfire.utias.utoronto.ca
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Fusion has the potential of providing an environmentally attractive, practically inexhaustible, safe and reliable source of energy. Fusion energy is produced by 'burning' deuterium and tritium -- the heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium can be extracted from the vast bodies of water on our planet and tritium will be produced in the reactor, where it will also be burned. Fundamental features of fusion energy are the absence of greenhouse gases, no run-away chain reactions, and no leftover radioactive fuel. Scientific demonstration of controlled fusion, using deuterium and tritium, has been achieved during the 1990s in TFTR (US) and JET (EU), the latter being the world's largest fusion device. The latest major international undertaking in fusion power R&D is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), whose objective is to produce self-sustaining fusion reactions. Participating countries in ITER are the EU, US, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India. Construction is currently underway in France.
International Collaborations
Over the years we have been involved in many international research collaborations related to materials issues for current and future fusion reactors, the latest being ITER. Some of these collaborations occur through coordinated research projects of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Recent and current collaborations include: work with GA-San Diego, JET-UK, Fusion Labs in Karlsruhe and Juelich, Germany, and TEKES-Finland, addressing tritium removal from ITER once the tritium inventory in the torus will have reached the design safety limit; project with Nagoya University, Japan, on blister formation in tungsten irradiated with D and H; project with IPP/Garching, Germany, on the study of hydrocarbon formation during simultaneous irradiation of tungsten with D and C ions; project with Fusion Lab in Moscow, Russia, on D retention in W irradiated with low-energy D ion beams and plasmas.