The 11 th Symposium on Fusion Technology, hosted by the Culham Laboratory of the UKAEA, was held at Oxford from 15–19 September 1980. The traditional aims of this biennial European Symposium have been to provide a forum for discussion of technical aspects of fusion research not often aired at more academic conferences, emphasizing the successes and shortcomings in the development of the technology required for the economic generation of power by controlled thermonuclear fusion. Recent successes generally stem from the designs of JET, TFTR and JT-60, from reactor studies, and from operational machines which now include (since the 10th Symposium which was held at Padua) ASDEX, PDX, Doublet III, ETA-BETA, TMX and also the superconducting T-7, which was unfortunately not represented at this 1980 Symposium. The most serious shortcomings were in remote maintenance and tritium systems, with only a few papers on these subjects. The dozen papers on materials technology, the most vital topic of all although a new topic for SOFT, only partially alleviated the impression gained by participants that materials capable of providing a reactor with an economic working life are not yet available.
Engineering Problems of Fusion Research, (Report on the Fifth Symposium, Princeton, 5-9 November 1973)