Question: What specific job did you do on Jet.

Robin Stafford Allen answered on 12 Mar 2012:

@moose4: ·A good question Moose.. I am an engineer who is in a group that are designing the heating system for the plasma in the ITER machine. This is the machine which will replace JET as the primary research machine and is being built in the South of France. The JET machine is a test machine toward the design of a fusion reactor which will make lots of heat energy for making electricity. All electricity in power stations is made by steam driving generators round and round. The steam can come from boilers burning gas, coal or oil, or from a nuclear reactor. Fusion is a new and better form of reactor using nuclear fusion which is the process keeping the sun hot. This is “changing” by fusion all the hydrogen into helium in the sun which will go on for millions of years yet.
As to specifically what i am doing I am designing a very big vacuum vessel that must withstand vacuum inside without collapse, and a shutter or valve about a metre square that has to open and close quickly. This means doing many calculations as to how strong things are, how heavy they are, and how hot will they get with the cooling system i have to design into them. I then oversee a draftsman who translates this into engineering drawings so that a factory somewhere else can make the items. Regards Robin.