The Editorial Board for Nuclear Fusion has put `aspects of steady state operation' very high on their wish list of subjects that deserve a special issue. The opportunity for publishing this special issue arose with the occasion of the 4th IAEA Technical Meeting on Steady State Operation of Magnetic Fusion Devices and MHD of Advanced Scenarios held in Ahmedabad, India, 1–5 February 2005. Participants to that meeting were asked if they were interested in rewriting and extending their workshop contributions as a submission to Nuclear Fusion. Technology papers were accepted because of the very nature of the subject. The submissions underwent the regular double-referee peer-review process. The accepted articles are grouped together in this special issue. Readers are reminded that the preceding 3rd IAEA Technical Meeting in Arles/Greifswald, May 2002, led to the September 2003 issue (Nuclear Fusion43 979–1005). The papers are organized in the following sequence:summary and overview of the workshop;experimental long pulse results of existing devices: JT-60U, LHD and NSTX;an overview of the programme in Japan on the issue;aspects of plasma-wall interaction: JT-60U, Tore Supra and experiments with liquid lithium;heating and current-drive: performance predictions and design of SST-1 systems;design and development of superconducting coil systems: EAST, ITER.
Steady state operation of magnetic fusion devices and MHD of advanced scenarios: report on the 4th IAEA technical meeting (Ahmedabad, India, 1–5 February 2005)