Figure 1: Top: An Illustration of the Fusion Reaction, with our visitors Dominik Freinberger (left) and Arda Erbasan (right), Bottom: Defected simulation box: red, blue, and purple balls represent interstitials, vacancies, and undamaged tungsten atoms, respectively. Dislocation loops and segments are denoted by continuous green lines.
The Fusion Industry Association (FIA), a non-profit advocacy organization representing nearly 30 fusion start-ups, released its second annual report on the state of the global fusion industry this July. The report provides an update on the milestones achieved in the last year by each of 33 companies surveyed as well as an aggregated picture of growth in the industry as a whole using data collected from the companies.
Neutron damage to fusion reactor materials and tritium self-sufficiency are two significant challenges that need to be solved for fusion to be a viable energy source integrated with the electricity grid. The development of future fusion reactors requires a thorough understanding and the ability to predict these processes, which in turn means highly demanding simulations need to be performed to assist in the analysis of the consequences of neutrons interacting with the vast array of reactor components.
Women in Fusion (WiF) is a global platform to inspire and support women in the Fusion field through sharing experiences, promoting leadership, and encouraging greater recognition for women’s contributions to Fusion. Their website, launched earlier this summer, offers information about the platform and participants of all genders are welcome to join. The website provides community forums for discussion which are open to all registered users as well as information about gender discrepancies in the Fusion workforce.
Source: Advancing Methods for Fusion Neutronics: An Overview of Workflows and Nuclear Analysis Activities at UKAEA, PPPL Colloquium.
On 4 August, our Fusion group’s members Ezequiel Goldberg and Martí Circuns i Duxans attended a Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) colloquium entitled “Advancing Methods for Fusion Neutronics: An Overview of Workflows and Nuclear Analysis Activities at UKAEA” with invited speakers Alex Valentine (Senior Nuclear Radiation Analyst) and Jonathan Naish (Lead for STEP Neutronics) from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Ezequiel and Martí found the Colloquium highly interesting, informative and directly relevant to the activities in our group. In particular, within FusionCAT project, we are developing ahigh-fidelity deterministic neutron transport solver called NEUTRO (an exhaustive description of the solver can be found in here) which solves the Boltzmann stationary transport equation. The solver was created within the Alya system: a Finite Element, parallel, multi-physics framework created at BSC designed to solve different physical phenomena in a coupled way.
We are looking for Researchers and/or Research Engineers in Computers Science, Engineering, Physics or related fields to join the growing team of the EUROfusionAdvanced Computing Hub at BSC.
The successful candidates will participate in cutting-edge European R&D activities in plasma physics science and fusion technology and become members of this reference performance group in an international working environment.
