by Bruce Strauss, DOE, MT-23 General Chairman
The 23rd International Conference on Magnet Technology (MT-23) was held in Boston at the Westin Copley Hotel from July 14 through July 19.
Dr. Bruce Strauss was the General Chairman of the conference; Joe Minervini of MIT served as the Program Chair; Larry Masur of Bruker was the Exhibits Chair; and Suzanne Strauss was the Local Arrangement Chair. The conference was sponsored by the Council on Superconductivity (CSC) of the IEEE.
View a gallery of photos from MT-23.
Nearly 800 technical delegates attended the meeting. The delegates were evenly split between Asia, Europe and the Americas. Forty-one percent of the delegates were first-time attendees. About 25 percent of the attendees were students. CSC provided more than $30,000 in direct support for students, including a special student/mentor luncheon.
Five plenary talks were highlights of the program. Hutch Nielson of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) spoke both about the magnets for ITER as well as future magnet requirements for the so-called DEMO project. Dr. Hideaki Maeda of RIKEN spoke of the engineering challenges facing the design and construction of magnets using Bi2223 and REBCO. Dr. James Bray, GE Global Research, discussed wind and ocean power generators. Dr. Luca Bottura of CERN discussed the frontiers of magnet technology for particle accelerators. The last plenary was given by Dr. Eric Colby of SLAC and DOE, who presented an interesting talk on hadron therapy accelerators, giving both the biological needs as well as the engineering challenges facing these devices.
The IEEE Council on Superconductivity presented three awards at MT-23. Prof. Herman ten Kate of the University of Twente and CERN and Dr. Joe Minervini of M.I.T. received the IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity for large-scale applications. Prof. ten Kate was cited for “his many contributions to the use of high field superconducting magnets in high energy physics experiments especially for his technical and managerial leadership in the constructions and operation of the ATLAS magnet for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.”
Dr. Minervini was recognized “for his many significant contributions in the field of large scale applications of superconductivity, in particular, for his contributions to numerous magnet systems for fusion energy, magnetic levitation, energy storage, power generation and transmission, magnetic separation, high energy and nuclear physics, medical applications, and for his contributions as the US Principal Investigator for the International Reactor (ITER) project which resulted in the design, fabrication and testing of the Central Solenoid Model Coil.”
Dr. Robert Aymar, former Director General of CERN and now with CEA (France) received the IEEE Max Swerdlow Award for promotion and leadership in the development of many large scale superconducting magnet systems, such as Tore-Supra, LHC and ITER, and for directing research for the next generation devices beyond LHC and ITER.
The next Magnet Technology conference will be held in Seoul, Korea.
