Information source: WARP FM March 1998
Original under:
http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm/march/#story6
- page index:
(red) Spar
Aerospace, Italy (1)
(green)
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) (2),
(3), (4)
- OS/2 Warp in the Strangest Places
- OS/2 Warp 4 is the brains behind the prototype
L7 Divertor Duct Maintenance vehicle for the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
-- a fusion reactor that is safer and more efficient than the
currently used fission reactors. Where one of these fusion reactors
needs only 1/2 ton of fusion fuel, producing the same amount of
electricity would require either 150 tons of uranium, 10 million
barrels of oil or two million tons of coal. This reactor is safer
because it cannot achieve a runaway c ondition, and its resulting
waste product is helium, a natural non-toxic gas.
- According to Perry Newhook of
Spar Aerospace, the OS/2 programmer who
designed and implemented the maintenance vehicle software, "The
ITER reactor is based on the tokamak'
concept. It is built toroidal, like a big hollow donut. Plasma
burning at 100 million degrees Celsius is kept hovering in place by
giant super-conducting magnets. Once the plasma reaches the target
temperature, tritium is injected to create the fusion reaction that
produces electricity."
- Divertor plates are used to divert the flow of energy from
charged particles produced in the fusion reaction, and remove helium
ash and other impurities. If the impurities are not correctly
removed,they eventually build up to the point where it cools the
plasma so much that a fusion reaction cannot be maintained. The L7
Divertor Duct Maintenance vehicle is used to reposition or replace
plates that are damaged because they touched the very hot plasma.
- A slimmed down version of OS/2 Warp runs the Graphical User
Interface (GUI) that an operator uses to remotely control the
vehicle and the robot mounted on front. The GUI includes a three
dimensional virtual display of the positions and orientations of the
vehicle and robot.
- To reach the divertor plates, the L7 Divertor Duct Maintenance
vehicle needs to go through several doors, which contain the
radioactivity generated by the reactor. The virtual display is
important because the operator must control the robot arm to unbolt
and remove the doors as well as lay track in the gap created by the
doors. OS/2 also runs the computer that provides the fail-safe
real-time control and monitoring of the vehicle.
- The vehicle system is currently being installed
in the ITER test reactor in Brasimone
Italy. For more information on this project, visit
http://www.iter.org and http://www.cfftp.com
.
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![[Projects]](../../../images.os2.org/de/projekte.gif){kind=small}
![[Projects]](../../../images.os2.org/de/projekte2.gif){kind=small}
