News – Page 12 – Fusion Group

Fusion likes breaking records!

March 14, 2022

Images of the different experimental fusion devices, from left to right: KSTAR, NIF, EAST.

On a previous post, we commented about the recent record achieved by the Joint European Torus (JET), in a unique set of D-T experiments. In this post, we would like to add several other records set by other fusion devices. In particular, we will be talking about the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and the National Ignition Facility (NIF). By all means, we can say that the period from 2020 up to the near future, will be remembered as a period of success and milestone fulfillment in the fusion field.

A distinction should be made between KSTAR, EAST and NIF as the physical mechanism to reach nuclear fusion is different. While KSTAR and EAST are two superconducting tokamaks, i.e. they rely on superconducting magnets which constraint the plasma shape and dynamics, NIF is a fusion device consisting of several lasers which heat and compress a small amount of a hydrogen (or an isotope as deuterium) pellet. Both mechanisms are known in the fusion field as, magnetic confinement fusion and intertial confinement fusion, respectively. Let’s now have a look at their respective records.

PRACE Advanced Training Centres’ (PATC) courses and events

March 4, 2022March 4, 2022

The PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing) is a cooperation between supercomputing centres in Europe, with the membership of

The PRACE organises educational and training events targeting both the scientific and industrial communities, with the cooperation of further institutes. Our research centre is one of the PRACE Advanced Training Centres (PATC), which offers and coordinates training and educational activities.

JET brings the power of the Sun closer to Earth

February 25, 2022February 25, 2022

News on the JET record (credit: EUROfusion).

We have been talking in our earlier blog posts (here and here) about the relevance of the deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel mixture in a magnetic confinement fusion device, such as a tokamak. The intrinsic property that makes this mixture so interesting is the higher fusion cross section as compared to other ion combinations at a relatively “low” energy (around 100 keV which is already 10 times the temperature of the centre of the Sun). In other words, D-T maximizes the number of fusion reactions, which is after all, what we are looking for.

The Joint European Torus (JET) has recently finished its second D-T campaign (DTE2 as we refer to it in more technical contexts), and the results could not have been better. This culminates a huge effort from the nuclear fusion community which makes the way towards the success of ITER smoother.

Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022

February 11, 2022February 16, 2022

Celebrating women in fusion: (top, from left to right) Meera Venkatesh, Gabriele Voigt, Najat Mokhtar, Elena Buglova, (bottom, from left to right) Sibylle Günter, Min Liao, Tammy Ma, Katherine Weimer

Declared in 2015 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, International Day of Women and Girls in Science (IDWGS), celebrated every year on the 11th of February, highlights the contributions of women and girl scientists and promotes gender equality across all scientific fields.

In honor of IDWGS we have selected four outstanding women fusioneers from across the world, each of whom work to push the boundaries of fusion research and bring us closer to viable fusion energy.

Developing a deterministic neutron transport solver – FusionCAT Task

January 28, 2022May 30, 2022

FusionCAT is an initiative coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC) in which seven Catalan institutions team up and collaborate in the field of research and development of fusion energy technology. The main goal is to develop state-of-the-art tools to simulate coupled physics phenomena that take place in fusion reactors leveraging the advantages of high-performance computing clusters.

Future energy production fusion reactors such as DEMO are based on the massive production of plasma neutrons. This includes their impact and effects on breeding blankets to multiply neutron output and sustain the fuel cycle. To achieve efficient energy production, the fuel cycle must be understood and optimized, which is why the second project within FusionCAT, labelled “Neutronics, tritium breeding and operational fuel cycle”, is oriented towards the analysis of the interaction between neutrons and reactor components. In this project, the first task involves the development of a high-fidelity deterministic neutron transport solver called NEUTRO.

PhD thesis on runaway-electron model development and validation in tokamaks

January 21, 2022January 21, 2022

Dr Mathias Hoppe with his PhD thesis at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Credit: Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 2022.

On January 14, our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen had the honour of chairing the evaluation panel of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis entitled “Runaway-electron model development and validation in tokamaks” at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Super fast electrons, so called “runaway electrons”, can sometimes appear in fusion devices and can cause severe damage to the device wall. To develop technologies to prevent the generation of runaway electrons, advanced computer models accounting for all the relevant physics mechanisms playing a role in a fusion device are required, which constitutes the first part of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis. To ensure that the models are correct they must also be tested on the fusion experiments of today, which can be done using synchrotron radiation and the techniques developed in the second part of Mathias Hoppe’s thesis.