Assembly of HIDRA fusion device begins

Students+utilize+cranes+and+other+devices+to+move+parts+of+the+Hybrid+Illinois+Device+for+Research+and+Applications+into+the+Nuclear+Radiation+Laboratory+on+Monday%2C+November+17.

Students utilize cranes and other devices to move parts of the Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications into the Nuclear Radiation Laboratory on Monday, November 17.

By Eric Fries

The first of several trucks arrived Monday morning at the Nuclear Radiation Lab on Goodwin Avenue to unload pieces of a disassembled plasma-fusion advanced physics testing device. 

The device, renamed the Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications, or HIDRA, was given to the University for free by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany. The University will have one of only a handful of fusion devices in the U.S. thanks to the efforts of several professors, including Daniel Andruczyk, David Ruzic, Davide Curreli and Jean Paul Allain.

One truck will arrive every day this week, said Andrucyzk, research assistant professor in nuclear, plasma and radiology engineering, who will oversee research conducted with the device. 

By Thursday, the device should begin to take shape, although it will take until January or February for assembly to be completed, Andruczyk said.

Next, the cooling and power services will need to be prepared, and there will be a four to five month testing period to make sure these services and the machine are ready.

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Andruczyk said they hope to have their first plasma reaction in mid-September of next year.

There will be opportunities for students to gain experience with fusion reactors by being involved in the assembly and preparation process. Andruczyk will be teaching a “fusion design and control” course next semester that will work with the HIDRA device.

“It’s very, very exciting, because aside from the hybrid device itself, it will have liquid metal walls and will be the first machine dedicated to studying these problems of interacting with materials,” Andruczyk said.

He added that the research and discoveries made with the machine will likely be applied to larger reactors elsewhere, such as a device at Princeton University.

“Liquid metals are starting to show more and more that they are the way of the future,” he said.

Eric can be reached at [email protected].