David T. Anderson Professor Address/E-mail Program Affiliations Courses Education Fields of Interest Publications Awards & Honors Summary Files and Links

Contact Information

1422 Engineering Hall 1415 Engineering Drive Madison, WI 53706

Tel: 608/262-0172 Fax: 608/262-1267 E-mail: dtanders@facstaff.wisc.edu

Program Affiliations

• Electrical and Computer Engineering

• HSX Plasma Laboratory

Courses

• ECE 220: Electrodynamics I
• ECE 310: Plasma Laboratory
• ECE 790: Master's Research or Thesis
• ECE 922: Seminar in Plasma Physics
• ECE 990: Research or Thesis

Education

• Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984

Fields of Interest

• Plasmas and Controlled Fusion
• Electromagnetic Fields and Waves
• Magnet design
• Plasma transport and heating in toroidal systems

Publications

• “Goals and Status of HSX: A Helically Symmetric Stellarator”, D.T. Anderson, A. Almagri, F.S.B. Anderson, N. Karulin, et al., J. Plasma Fusion Res. SERIES, Vol 1 (1998)
• “Viscosity and ion-neutral Effects on Plasma Rotation in Stellarators”, J.N. Talmadge, B.J. Peterson, D.T. Anderson, F.S.B. Anderson, et al., Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research 1995 1, 797 (1995).
• “Physics Assessment of Stellarators as Fusion Power Plants”, J.F. Lyon, J.A. Rome, P.R. Garabedian and D.T. Anderson, Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research 1995 2, 655 (1995).
• “A Stellarator Configuration for Reactor Studies”, D.T. Anderson and P.R. Garabedian, Nuc. Fus. 34 (1994) 881.
• “Fluctuation Induced Transport and Poloidal Rotation in the Interchangeable Module Stellarator”, P.G. Matthews, J.N. Talmadge, D. T. Anderson, F.S.B. Anderson and J.L. Shohet, Phys.Fluids B 5, 11 4061 (1993).

Selected Awards, Honors and Societies

• American Physical Society
• Sigma Xi
• Bacon Fellowship, 1976
• IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Student of the Year-1976
• Design News Magazine Grand Prize in "Excellence in Design"-1982

Summary

Plasmas are a ‘fourth’ state of matter, highly-ionized gases at high temperature, and make up most of the universe. In addition to numerous industrial applications, the confinement and heating of plasmas are studied as a means to provide virtually limitless energy through the process of nuclear fusion. In this process, hydrogen isotopes ‘fuse’ to form a helium nucleus releasing tremendous amounts of energy; it is the process driving the stars and occurs at stellar-like temperatures ~100 million degrees. Intense magnetic field ‘bottles’ are used to contain the hot plasma. Plasma confinement and fusion have progressed to the point where over 15 megawatts of fusion energy has been produced in laboratory experiments.

The research effort in the HSX Plasma Laboratory centers on a novel plasma containment device, the Helically Symmetric Experiment (HSX) recently completed under funding from the US DoE. HSX combines the positive features of the tokamak type device, which has achieved the best parameters to date, with the stellarator, which has tremendous engineering advantages for fusion reactor design. The primary goal of HSX is to study the confinement properties of this unique configuration and demonstrate that we can meet or exceed tokamak-level performance in a stellarator device.

Files and Links of Interest

• Helically Symmetric Experiment Home Page

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