On the 17th of July 2013, the management of IPPLM had an honour to welcome the representatives of Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), namely Mr. Gabriele Fioni, Directeur des sciences de la matière du Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, Dr. Alain Becoulet, Chef de l’IRFM / Head of IRFM; CEA/DSM/Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique and Dr. Tuong Hoang, Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique, CEA Cadarache. The aim of the visit was to sign the Cooperation Agreement in the field of plasma physics and controlled fusion between CEA and IPPLM. The French delegation was accompanied by Ms Camille Baudoin (Adjointe du Conseiller Nucleaire, Ambassade de France en Pologne). 

After welcome, the representatives of both parties underlined the significance of the international cooperation. Director M. Fioni described the CEA organizational structure as well as the personnel dedicated to this entity. He also underlined that Poland is the first European partner to sign the Cooperation Agreement. Dr T. Hoang mentioned the extensive experience of the French partner in the field of fast particle diagnostics. Mr Roman Zagórski, the Coordinator of Euratom-IPPLM Association, stated that the cooperation with CEA is a very important step for the Institute and a summary of our experience in the framework of the European fusion programme. IPPLM director, Mr Andrzej Gałkowski, expressed his hope to witness the constructive changes in the structure of Euratom Association and pointed out the necessity to align the Polish programme to the European guidelines.

Having exchanged the ideas, the participants had a chance to see the presentation of dr. A. Becoulet regarding the WEST project and main technologies prepared for Tore Supra. Mr R. Zagórski, in his turn, summarized the Polish experience of the international cooperation, involvement in JET activities (participation in the experimental campaigns) and Wendelstein 7-X project. He also mentioned the latest achievement of IPPLM, namely the start of the Hall thruster laboratory.

When the presentations finished, IPPLM and CEA directors signed the Cooperation Agreement and underlined the importance of this step, referred to the historical experience of Maria Skłodowska and Pierre Curie and expressed their hope to perform jointly many scientific projects, exchange mutual experience and take advantage of the potential of the scientific staff of both institutions. The official part of the meeting was followed by the tour around IPPLM’s premises where the guests had a chance to get acquainted with the operation of Plasma Focus generator, PlanS laboratory and the laser equipment stored in the „L” building.

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The Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM, Warsaw, Poland) and the International Centre for Dense Magnetised Plasmas (ICDMP) are organizing the 12th Kudowa Summer School "Towards Fusion Energy", which will be held in Kudowa Zdrój, Poland, in June 9-13, 2014.

The Kudowa Summer School "Towards Fusion Energy" takes place annually in Kudowa Zdrój, Poland. The school aims at young scientists (PhD and Master students) from different countries, and provides courses on various aspects of fusion energy, plasma experiments and technology. 

The topics of the lectures are as follows:

• Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF),
• Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF),
• Fusion Technology,
• Plasma Diagnostic Techniques.

Urszula Woźnicka¹, Łukasz Ciupiński², Jacek Jagielski³, Monika Kubkowska⁴, Marek Stodulski¹, Roman Zagórski⁴

¹ The Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland, (IFJ PAN)

² Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

³ National Center for Nuclear Research, Otwock/Swierk, Poland (NCBJ)

⁴ The Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, Warsaw, Poland, (IPPLM)

   The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is now being assembled at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Greifswald, Germany. Polish involvement in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator programme is quite large and covers many areas, started from cooperation on device assembly and development of the NBI system, structural and mechanical calculations through development of several diagnostics, like X-ray pulse height analysis PHA, C/O monitor system, neutron and microwave diagnostics, and modeling studies related to neutron MCNP calculations and 3D edge plasma simulations.

   The magnetic system of the Wendelstein 7-X consists of 20 planar and 50 non-planar superconducting coils toroidally arranged in five identical modules made of half-modules set with 2-fold rotational symmetry. Due to the complex geometry, the complex load pattern, and the nonlinear interaction between the components, the accurate analysis of the magnetic system of W7-X is only possible by numerical means.

   IPPLM Association has carried out the structural – mechanical analyses of this system since 2004. Among others, finite element parametric models of critical system elements have been developed at Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) in cooperation with the team of Structural Integrity at Max-Plank-Institute für Plasmaphysik (IPP) in Greifswald. Those models, built using ANSYS code, enabled semi-automatic numerical analyses of the connections and provided a better understanding of the structural behaviour of the joints, as well as enabled to study influences of tolerances, and to follow complex manufacture and assembly processes subjected to non-conformities after some manual modifications. Further details on these activities can be found in [1 - 3].

A general view of the W7-X half-module FEM model.