Fusion research contributions by Unique Scientific Infrastructures in Spain

Three of the 29 Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) in Spain: Alba synchrotron, TJ-II heliac fusion reactor and MareNostrum supercomputer.

The Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) in Spain are facilities, resources and services for the development of top-quality cutting-edge research as well as communication, exchange, and preservation of knowledge, technology transfer, and promotion of innovation. They are either unique or exceptional in their fields, have a high cost of investment, maintenance, and operation, and are of a strategic importance that justifies their availability to all actors in the field of R&D&I.

For example, the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (the Great Telescope of the Canary Islands) is used, among others, to monitor potentially dangerous asteroids and the ALBA synchrotron is used to study the material’s internal structure. They all share three fundamental characteristics: they are infrastructures with public ownership, unique and open to competitive access.

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My experience working as a summer intern in the BSC Fusion Group

Lara San Martín Suárez

I am Lara San Martín Suárez, and from the 22nd of June to the 30th of August 2020 I have been a summer internship student at the Fusion Group in Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), selected to take part in their annual International Summer HPC Internship Programme.

I started my internship when Barcelona was still in the second phase of the de-escalation government plan, caused by the COVID-19 outbreak that happened at the beginning of this year. Because of that, I started the Programme by working from home, and due to the instability of the pandemic during these months I did the whole internship this way.

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Applications are now open for IAEA’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme to Push for More Women in Nuclear

Source: IAEA

The IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme (MSCFP) seeks to inspire and support young women to pursue a career in nuclear science and technology, nuclear safety and security, or non-proliferation. The application process has opened for female students interested in applying for a scholarship from the programme towards their Master’s degrees in nuclear science and technology, nuclear safety and security or non-proliferation.

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Proton irradiation decelerates corrosion in structural materials from a molten salt reactor

Beam-facing side comparison regions of Ni-20Cr samples. Schematic of the irradiated (in orange) and unirradiated (in green). Zones and SEM images of the beam-facing side of the Ni-20Cr foils after 4 h at 650 °C at a beam current density of 2.5 μA/cm^2. Scale bar: 200 μm. Image adapted from Nat.Comm. 11 (2020) 3430.

Radiation nearly always deteriorates the materials exposed to it, requiring replacement of key components in high-radiation environments such as nuclear reactors. But for certain alloys that could be used in fission or fusion reactors, the opposite turns out to be true: Researchers from MIT and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now found that instead of hastening the material’s degradation, radiation actually improves its resistance, potentially doubling the material’s useful lifetime. This finding came as a surprise to nuclear scientists and can be potentially used in new fusion reactors designs. The work lead by Weiyue Zhou and Prof. Michael Short have been recently published in Nature Communications.

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Assembly of ITER begins

Celebrating the beginning of ITER assembly. (Source: ITER)

First-of-a-kind components have been arriving in recent months at the ITER construction site in Cadarache, France, from the 35 ITER member countries around the world. The arrival on July 21 of the first sector of the ITER vacuum vessel from South Korea marked the beginning of a four-and-a-half year machine assembly process for the world’s largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as an energy source.

On July 28, technical and civil leaders from ITER member countries celebrated the beginning of assembly with a global event hosted virtually by French President Emmanuel Macron and livestreamed on YouTube.

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New agreement to finance BSC for the coming nine years

On 16 July, the Catalan Minister Àngels Chacon visited the MareNostrum supercomputer to present the guidelines for the new 2020-2029 agreement that guarantees the financing of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). The event was attended by the Secretary of Universities and Research of the Generalitat, Mr Francesc Xavier Grau, and the Rector of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Mr Francesc Torres.

The Minister of Business and Knowledge of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Ms Àngels Chacón, explained to the centre’s directors that the Catalan government will contribute 59 million euros to BSC under the agreement with the Spanish Government and the UPC for the period 2020-2029. This agreement has yet to be ratified.

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