| The
21st IEEE/Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Symposium on Fusion
Engineering (SOFE05) took place September 26 - 29, 2005 in Knoxville,
Tennessee. The Symposium is dedicated to the scientific, technological
and engineering issues of fusion energy research. Approximately
240 (188 preregistered, 52+ at the door) participants - about 40%
from 10 different countries, and about 15% students - attended the
meeting which was hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The ITER site decision had recently been announced and SOFE05 was
the first international technical meeting to highlight this exciting
future. A special Plenary session included presentations from two
of the ITER Participant Teams, the deputy director of the ITER International
Team and the leader of the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization.
This is a period of great activity in the worldwide fusion program
and increased international participation and presentations at the
meeting reflected a renewed enthusiasm in fusion research. Presentations
on new experimental facilities included the EAST superconducting
tokamak in China, the SST-1 superconducting tokamak in India, the
KSTAR superconducting tokamak in South Korea, the W7X stellarator
in Germany, and NCSX compact stellarator at PPPL (see article p.
35), the National Ignition Facility at LLNL, and upgrades to the
Z-Accelerator at SNL.
Multiple invited paper sessions highlighted the progress on these
devices. Additional invited paper sessions informed participants
about the recent results and upgrades to major operating inertial
and magnetic fusion devices (ASDEX, C-Mod, DIII-D, JET, JT-60),
and about developments in fusion-related technology research on
materials, chamber technology, plasma technology, blanket technology,
and power plant studies. Contributed oral and posted sessions provided
an excellent opportunity for informed dialog and exchange of information.
Nermin Uckan was the SOFE05 conference General Chair and David Rasmussen
was the Technical Program Chair. For more information, please visit
the SOFE web site at http://www.ornl.gov/fed/sofe05.
Nermin Uckan can be reached at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
P.O. Box 2008, MS6169, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6169 USA; Phone: +1 865
574-1354; Fax: +1 865 241-8231; E-mail: uckanna@ornl.gov.
David Rasmussen can be reached the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
P.O. Box 2008, MS6169, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6169 USA; Phone: +1 865
574 1158; Fax: +1 865 576-2926; E-mail: rasmussenda@ornl.gov@ornl.gov.
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