The 45th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics took place in Prague, Czech Republic, from the 2nd to the 6th of July, 2018. It is the largest annual conference in the field organized in Europe. This year the conference attracted a record number of more than 850 registered participants throughout the world. Our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen chaired the magnetic confinement fusion plasma section of the Program Committee.
Our researcher Xavier Sáez gave a plenary talk on “HPC for solving multi-physics problems” at the 6th International Workshop on Numerical Modelling of High-Temperature Superconductors (HTS) in Costa de Caparica, Portugal.
Xavier focused his speech on the importance of multi-physics simulations to capture all relevant phenomena to model and simulate complex systems, and the key role of High-Performance Computing (HPC) due to the high computing resources required in those simulations.
In the process of fusion energy production based hydrogen heavy isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel, high-energy neutrons are released. These neutrons have many roles in a fusion reactor.
On one side, neutrons from the fusion reactions taking place in the fuel inside the reactor vacuum vessel generate the heat that, in a fusion plant, will initiate the electricity-producing process. Moreover, neutron interaction with lithium inside the machine will produce tritium.
From the 3rd to the 13th of April, our fusion group has participated in the Code Camp of the EUROfusion “Code Development for Integrated Modelling” (WPCD) Work Package at Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre (PSNC), Poznan, Poland.
WPCD develops generic and flexible sophisticated workflows for physics applications, aiming at providing a validated modular suite for the simulation of complete plasma discharges of any existing and future tokamak, including JET, JT-60SA, ITER and DEMO.
Five members of our Fusion Group participated in the 5th Severo Ochoa Doctoral Symposium organized on the 24th and 25th of April 2018 at Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Three members, i.e. Allah Rakha, Edgar Olivares and Dani Gallart, had a chance to give oral presentations while Marc Fuster presented a poster and volunteered together with our newest group member Alba Gordó to help in its organization. The main goal of the event is to provide a framework for young researchers to share their research results and to improve communication skills.
The Fusion Group at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is looking for a Junior Developer on Computational Modeling for Fusion with a degree in physics, computer science or similar. The position supports the developments in the group and involves different state-of-the-art technologies, with focus on deployment of research tools in the ITER Modelling and Analysis Suite (IMAS).