General Fusion

Magnetized Ring Test (MRT) is a plasma injector project at General Fusion. It uses a magnetized Marshall gun to create a spheromak inside of an aluminum implodable cylindrical liner. The objective of the experiment is to understand losses during compression and eventually to improve plasma heating in future shots.

Mini Sphere is designed to aid the development of General Fusion's full scale Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) reactor. The goal of the experiment is to test their compression technology and validate their simulations. The project construction consists of a one meter inner diameter sphere filled with liquid lead (Pb) surrounded by 14 full scale pistons mounted around the exterior.

PCS (Plasma Compression Small) is an implosion experiment to study the physics of compact toroid (CT) compression. Because the implosions involve chemical explosives, tests take place outdoors in remote locations. The tests are destructive and can only be executed every few months. These tests are carried out to advance the understanding of plasma compression with the goal of advancing toward a power plant scale demonstration.

PI-1 is an experimental plasma injector at General Fusion. The device is 5 meters long and 1.9 meter in diameter and has a conical shape. It uses a 2-stage Marshall gun system. The aim of the experiment is to study the physics and engineering needed to produce a spheromak to be used in Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF).

PI-2 is a continuation of PI-1 at General Fusion that also focused on self-confined plasma. Both PI-1 and PI-2 create self confined spheromaks. The goal of the experiment is to explore high density, medium temperature and fast compression of a spheromak.

General Fusion's PI-3 is designed to study the plasma physics of a MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) reactor scale plasma injector. The experiment consists of a large, single-stage Marshall gun which injects a plasma into a region which includes a current carrying center shaft. This results in the creation of a spherical tokamak rather than a spheromak which was studied in PI-2 and PI-1. The reason for moving to the spherical tokamak design is improved thermal confinement and therefore longer energy confinement time.

SPECTOR (Spherical Compact Toroid) is a 40cm diameter, small scale experimental plasma injector at General Fusion capable of forming spherical tokamak plasmas. There are two versions of SPECTOR. The first is a non-compressed version with extensive plasma diagnostics including Thomson scattering, FIR polarimeter and VUV spectrometer. The second is a compressed machine that needs to be small, inexpensive and robust because it is transported out of the lab and destructively tested. The objective of SPECTOR is to develop the target plasma for General Fusion's liquid metal compression system.

SWC is a liquid compression experiment at General Fusion to explore the stability of the spherical liquid cavity. The size of the experiment is 1/10th the radius of the planned Fusion Demonstration Plant and the operation is currently water-filled. It is manufactured using titanium 3D printing technology.