Chapman I T, Cowley S C, Wilson H R
UK Atomic Energy Authority, Culham Campus , Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3DB, UK.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, 100 Stellarator Road , Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2024 Oct 9;382(2280):20230416. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2023.0416. Epub 2024 Aug 26.
This theme issue collects together papers summarising the conceptual design of the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP). In 2019, the UK government funded the first design stages of a prototype fusion powerplant based on a compact toroidal geometry, called STEP. The primary technical aims of STEP are to produce net energy, to be self-sufficient in tritium fuel and to demonstrate a maintenance regime that would extrapolate to appropriate availability for commercial powerplants. After 5 years and over 1000 person-years of detailed scientific and engineering conceptual design, this theme issue acts as a compendium of the current design basis for STEP, noting that this is a snapshot in time and that the design will continue to evolve. This article is part of the theme issue 'Delivering Fusion Energy - The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP)'.
本期专题汇集了多篇论文，总结了用于能源生产的球形托卡马克（STEP）的概念设计。2019年，英国政府资助了基于紧凑型环形几何结构的原型聚变发电厂的首个设计阶段，该发电厂名为STEP。STEP的主要技术目标是产生净能量、实现氚燃料自给自足，并展示一种维护模式，这种模式能够推断出适用于商业发电厂的合理可用性。经过5年、超过1000人年的详细科学和工程概念设计，本期专题成为了STEP当前设计基础的汇编，需要注意的是，这只是一个时间点的快照，并且设计将继续发展。本文是“实现聚变能源——用于能源生产的球形托卡马克（STEP）”专题的一部分。
