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PSFC Collaborates on New PSI Center

Prof. Dennis Whyte, PSFC Principal Investigator for the PSI Center.

The Plasma Science and Fusion Center has partnered with the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of California, Berkeley to create a new Center for the study of Plasma-Surface Interactions (PSI).  Funded by the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, the PSI Center will receive $6.9 million over five years, with the PSFC receiving about one third.

Prof. Dennis Whyte, PSFC Principal Investigator for the PSI Center, has long been interested in how particles at the plasma edge behave, and how they affect the wall materials of their confinement vessels, such as tokamaks used in fusion research.  Whyte notes, “The demands on plasma-facing materials in a steady-state fusion device will be extreme.”  Some materials might erode or degrade quickly, requiring frequent replacement; others might eject too much material into the plasma, contaminating it. Finding answers to questions about the physics of plasma interactions at this boundary could affect future choices in fusion engineering.

At the PSFC, PSI experiments will be performed using DIONISOS, a unique combination of an accelerator with a high-power laboratory plasma, which Whyte originally developed at  the University of Wisconsin-Madison before coming to MIT. This experiment uses a steerable high-energy ion beam to analyze in real time materials being bombarded by plasma. 

Within the tripod structure of the Center, the PSFC will be primarily responsible for measurements and diagnostics.  The UCSD Center for Energy Research will perform experiments that expose materials to plasma, while UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering will focus  on numerical modeling of the materials. 

AEDs installed at PSFC

The PSFC Office of Environment, Safety and Health has installed automated electronic defibrillators (AED'S) with the generous support of Director Porkolab, Earl Marmar and Richard Petrasso at the following locations:

NW16- Headquarters (2nd floor lobby)
NW17- 1st Floor (next to front exit)
NW21- Main Hallway (near coffee machine)
NW21-187 (Alcator Control Room)

Several PSFC employees have already been trained in the use of AED's and are CPR certified. The PSFC ES&H Office will be offering additional CPR classes throughout the month of March 2009, which will include training on these life-saving devices. A memo on how to register for the classes will be forthcoming.

A refresher video on the use of the Phillips HeartStart AED is now posted on the web at:http://www.psfc.mit.edu/heart/onsite08a.html

[Please note that the video presently works in Internet Explorer and Firefox - make sure pop-up windows are allowed for the above web address.]

The AED's are the same model as the others installed in several locations throughout the MIT Campus.