Nuclear Fusion Archives - Prof Prabhat Ranjan's Blog

My Contribution to Nuclear Fusion Technology

For nearly four decades, I have been involved in the Nuclear Fusion work due to a midnight patriotic feeling while on my way out of the country for higher studies and since then have continued to play a role in developing or promoting nuclear fusion in India. I hope to continue contributing to this and expect to see applications happening in India too!

Starting in 1983 at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (and Univ of California, Berkeley) till 2002, I did full-time research in the area of Nuclear Fusion in USA and India. I contributed through modeling, development of data acquisition and control system, variety of system development, experiments, and operational improvements as well as solving technical problems to enhance the performance of both the first generation Tokamaks(a type of Nuclear Fusion Reactor) in Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics(SINP), Kolkata and Institute for Plasma Research(IPR), Gandhinagar to international levels of performance. At IPR, I was project leader of Aditya Tokamak from 1996 to 2002. I was also Project Leader of SST-1(Superconducting Tokamak) Operation and Control Group from 1997-2002.

Here I describe my contribution during the continued contribution to Nuclear Fusion for almost 4 decades.

Nuclear Fusion in India : Past, Present and Future

This is video of a plenary talk that was given at Bihar Science Conference on Dec 3, 2020 held online. Talk gives overall progress of nuclear fusion in last 4 decades in India and where we need to go. The talk also makes historic announcement regarding a privately funded Nuclear Fusion project in India code named – Project Sanlayan. Here is the link to video – talk starts after 3:00 minutes.

DYPIU : National Science Day discussion on Nuclear Fusion

Prof Prabhat Ranjan, Vice Chancellor, D Y Patil International University, Akurdi, Pune leads a discussion on use of Nuclear Fusion for a clean energy for world. This was organized on the occasion of National Science Day (Feb 28, 2021). He is joined by Dr Akash Singh, Inventor and Investor and Mr Paul Mahal, a semiconductor expert and CEO, Stanford Ventures – both based out of Silicon Valley, USA.

Dancing Sparks in ADITYA Tokamak(Nuclear Fusion Reactor)

This blog talks about how we started to notice sparks at different location on the top of machine, which had nothing to do with insulation failures but improper grounding and kept us clueless for long time.

This blog talks about how we started to notice sparks at different locations on the top of the machine, which had nothing to do with insulation failures but improper grounding and kept us clueless for a long time.

Mystery of Error Fields in ADITYA Tokamak(Nuclear Fusion Reactor)!

This blog talks about how in rush to complete the project, a major deviation during manufacturing of Magnet Coils was accepted that impacted the performance of the Machine throughout its life.

This blog talks about how in rush to complete the project, a major deviation during manufacturing of Magnet Coils was accepted that impacted the performance of the Machine throughout its life.

How I got into Nuclear Fusion Research

This story goes back to 1981, when I had completed my Masters in Physics from Delhi University and was proceeding to USA to do PhD. I did specialization in Astrophysics and General Theory of Relativity during my MSc. During summer of 1981, I had worked with Prof J V Narlikar on Black Holes at TIFR as part of NCERT National Science Talent Search Summer Camp.

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How I became Accidental Experimentalist !

This long blog describes my successful foray into experiments to prove my model and my insistence on using only components available in the local market. It led to a unique development, improvement of machine to international standards and publication in top rated journal in spite of efforts made by colleagues to put barriers!

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