Culham Science Centre
Culham Science Centre
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| Headquarters | Culham, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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Steven Cowley |
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Parent organization
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United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority |
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| Website | www |
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is the UK's national laboratory for fusion research. It is located at the Culham Science Centre, near Culham, Oxfordshire, and is the site of the Joint European Torus (JET), Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) and the now closed Small Tight Aspect Ratio Tokamak (START).
Formerly known as UKAEA Culham, the laboratory was renamed in October 2009 as part of organisational changes at its parent body, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Since September 2008 the director has been Professor Steven Cowley, and the centre has been engaged in work towards the final detailed design of ITER as well as preparatory work in support of DEMO.
In 2014 it was announced the centre would house the new RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments)
The centre occupies the site of the former Royal Navy airfield RNAS Culham (HMS Hornbill), which was transferred to UKAEA in 1960. The UKAEA continues to operate the site and is the major tenant.
As well as CCFE, the centre houses the headquarters of the UKAEA, and hosts many commercial and other organisations.
UKAEA officially opened Culham Laboratory in 1965, having moved its fusion research operations from the nearby Harwell research site. Culham also amalgamated fusion activities at Aldermaston and other UK locations to form a national centre for fusion research. John Adams, who would go on to become Director-General of CERN, was appointed the first Director of the laboratory.
Culham built almost 30 different experiments in its first two decades as a variety of fusion concepts were tried out; among them shock-waves, magnetic mirror machines, stellarators and levitrons. During the 1970s, research became focused on magnetic confinement fusion using the tokamak device, which had emerged as the most promising design for a future fusion reactor. In the late 1960s, Culham scientists had already assisted in tokamak development by using laser scattering measurement techniques to verify the highly promising results achieved by the Russian T3 device). This led to the adoption of the tokamak by the majority of fusion research establishments internationally.
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