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.
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.
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.
It is our pleasure to organize the 1st Spanish Fusion HPC Workshop as an online event with Zoom on 27 November 2020. The workshop covers all computer applications using High Performance Supercomputing (HPC) in the field of fusion research. These include, but are not limited to, numerical simulations in the following areas:
The Barcelona Supercomputer Center has enabled a virtual tour of the MareNostrum 4 supercomputer. This tour allows to discover one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe located in the beautiful chapel of Torre Girona. The chapel maintains ornamental elements such as stained glass and religious images that can be appreciated in the online visit. Moreover, the tour gives access to parts restricted to the public such as the inside of the supercomputer cage.
It has been 4 months since the beginning of the confinement. Barcelona was stricken by the CoVid-19 as was the rest of the world. Fortunately, things are getting better and Barcelona ended the confinement the 21st of June together with the rest of Spain. It has been a difficult time for many who have seen their lifestyle seriously affected and their jobs frozen or even worse, cancelled. We still do not know what the economical magnitude of this situation will be or how the world is planning to recover from this.
However, the Fusion Group feels deeply privileged as our work has not been cancelled nor stopped at any point. We have been and are working remotely (from home), following the recommendations of the government. The main European fusion projects under EUROfusion we are working with, JET and AUG, have recently resumed their experimental activities and the modelling efforts have been increased during the confinement. Furthermore, in order to cover all the projects where the Fusion Group is involved, two new researchers have been recruited: Dr. Francisco Fernández and Dr. Julio Gutiérrez. They will work within the Ris3Cat FusionCAT project.