The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre -Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion (BSC) coordinates FusionCAT, an initiative that brings together seven Catalan institutions to collaborate in the field of research and development of fusion energy technology. The cutting-edge tools to develop are focused on High-Performance simulations of several coupled physics phenomena that take place in fusion reactors. These go from fuel production to energy harvesting, including plasma and neutron transport and new materials development.
Group
14th Carolus Magnus Summer School
The 14th Carolus Magnus Summer School on Plasma and Fusion Energy Physics (CMSS) takes place this year between 20 September and 1 October. The event is held online and has attracted 90 participants from around 25 countries.
Attending to CMSS has a long tradition in our group. Our group leader Mervi Mantsinen was one of the participants in the 1st CMSS in Vaals, The Netherlands back in 1993 while our group member Dani Gallart with our ex-group member Allah Rakha participated in its previous 13th edition in Weert, The Netherlands, in 2018. To follow the tradition, our two PhD students, i.e. Tomás Bensadón and Mátyás Aradi, attend the summer school this year.
Master thesis on Experimental Validation of a new HPC Modelling Tool for High Temperature Superconductors
Our Fusion group member, Oriol Fernández has successfully presented his Master thesis in the Master of Modelling for Science and Engineering in Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona entitled Experimental Validation of a new HPC Modelling Tool for High-Temperature Superconductors.
This thesis was based on the work Oriol has been carrying out since last February in our group in close collaboration with ICMAB (Institute of Material Science in Barcelona), under the supervision of José Lorenzo and Mervi Mantsinen. The defense was held virtually due to the Covid19 pandemic on the 8th of September.
My Summer Internship at BSC Fusion Group
I am Donato Jiménez Benetó, an undergraduate student in mathematics and engineering physics. I took part in the BSC International Summer HPC Internship Programme during the summer of 2021 at the Fusion Group. Unfortunately, I had to work from home during the whole internship due to the COVID-19 situation, but, even so, I felt very welcome and well cared for by the group from the first day.
Two Students on their internship in the Fusion group
Hello! As part of the Summer of HPC project ‘Computational atomic-scale modelling of materials for fusion reactors‘ organised by PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) we, Eoin Kearney (from the Erastova group, University of Edinburgh) and Paolo Settembri (University of L’Aquila), joined the fusion group of the Barcelona Supercomputer Center (BSC) in the months of July and August. It was a great opportunity, and we’d like to share our experiences of the summer and working with the group.
We were supervised by Julio Gutiérrez Moreno and the group leader Mervi Mantsinen. They were a great help and really supportive throughout our project. As the project was online due to the pandemic it would have been easy to become disconnected, but they helped us feel welcome in the group. Being part of group meetings also helped us feel part of everything.
Now below we’ll give you an introduction to our projects and how the summer went.
Fusion group members attend the International Workshop of High-Temperature Superconductors
Our team members Oriol Fernández and José Lorenzo attended the 7th International Workshop on Numerical Modelling of High-Temperature Superconductors from 22nd to 23rd June. The event was planned to be held in Nancy, France, in 2020 but due to the current pandemic situation it had to be postponed and finally took place remotely in 2021.