From April 7th through 10th, Fusion Group Researcher Ezequiel Goldberg participated in the Fusion Neutronics Meeting 2025: ITER and beyond, organised this year by the “Tecnologías de Fisión, Fusión y Fuentes de Irradiación” group (TECFIR) from UNED with the support of ITER and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The meeting venue was the Facultad de Educación building at the UNED campus in Madrid, Spain, and the event gathered experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and future directions in fusion neutronics.
On the event’s third day, Ezequiel presented the work “Neutron flux in IFMIF-DONES operation room: a comparison between Monte Carlo and deterministic codes.” The presentation focused on recent advancements in NEUTRO, the neutronics module of Alya, developed as part of the Alya4Fusion initiative. NEUTRO simulates neutron flux distribution and the resulting interactions with reactor materials, key to improving the accuracy and safety of fusion reactor designs.
Alya4Fusion aims to make Alya the first unified, multiphysics, fully coupled simulation framework tailored for fusion reactors, optimised for high-performance computing (HPC) systems. By integrating modules developed by the Fusion Group, like NEUTRO, the initiative supports the development of comprehensive, predictive models for complex reactor environments.
The opening of the meeting featured a noteworthy session with remarks by Ricardo Mairal Usón, Rector of UNED, Subhash Puthanveetil from ITER, Michael Loughlin from ORNL, and Rafael Juárez from UNED. In his address, Dr. Puthanveetil stressed the importance of knowledge preservation, sharing, and peer review in scientific advancement. Dr. Loughlin reflected on the fusion neutronics community growth, with 29 years since the first meeting was held. He also emphasised the need to clearly define the community’s research goals and obstacles to overcome. Dr. Mairal highlighted the increasing global energy demand and the vital role of fusion research in meeting future electricity needs, with worldwide efforts to develop nuclear fusion.
The conference proved to be a valuable opportunity for international collaboration, enabling in-person engagement with many of the world’s leading fusion neutronics experts. The next meeting is scheduled to take place at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) in 2026.
The Fusion Group would like to thank the TECFIR group and UNED for organising such a fruitful event. We look forward to continuing our active role in the neutronics community and further advancing Alya4Fusion as a cornerstone for HPC-enabled fusion research.
Our work presented at the conference has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium, funded by the European Union via the Euratom Research and Training Programme (Grant Agreement No 101052200 — EUROfusion). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.
