DRESDYN - A new facility for MHD experiments with liquid sodium

Magnetohydrodynamics 48 (2012), pp. 103-113 The DREsden Sodium facility for DYNamo and thermohydraulic studies (DRESDYN) is intended as a platform both for large scale experiments related to geo- and astrophysics as well as for experiments related to thermohydraulic and safety aspects of liquid metal batteries and liquid metal fast reactors. The most ambitious projects in the framework of DRESDYN are a homogeneous hydromagnetic dynamo driven solely by precession and a large Taylor-Couette type experiment for the combined investigation of the magnetorotational instability and the Tayler instability. In this paper we give a short summary about the ongoing preparations and delineate the next steps for the realization of DRESDYN.