Fusion technology: (Report on the 15th Symposium held at Utrecht, The Netherlands, 19-23 September 1988)

The 15th Symposium on Fusion Technology (SOFT) was held in the Congress Centre of the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht from 19 to 23 September 1988. The Symposium was hosted by the Association Euratom-FOM and the Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN). More than 500 scientists from 21 countries assembled in this luxurious setting to exchange information on the technological aspects of fusion research. About 15% of the participants came from outside Europe and about 15% of the participants are involved in industrial research. Parallel to the Symposium, an industrial exhibition was organized by Dutch Scientific. Twenty-two invited papers and 298 contributed papers were presented, covering the topics shown in Table I. Compared with the previous SOFT, the number of papers is 8% higher. The largest increase is for papers on the topic "materials for fusion devices", which indicates the approach of the first reactor-like devices; there is an almost equal and surprising increase for papers on the topic "experimental systems". The number of papers on the topic "magnet engineering and power supply technology" declined strongly.