Europe ready to prove the fabrication of Test Blanket Modules
DEMO, the fusion device that will follow ITER, will need to re-generate the tritium consumed during the reaction. In order to achieve this, it will be equipped with a breeding blanket that will generate tritium as the neutrons from the fusion reaction touch its surface. They will also extract the thermal power produced by the plasma so that it can be used later to produce electricity. Although ITER will not be self-sufficient in tritium, it will provide a unique opportunity to test mock-ups of different breeding blanket concepts.
Wendelstein 7-X upgrading for next experimental campaign
An upgrade to the optimized stellarator fusion experiment Wendelstein 7-X at IPP in Greifswald, Germany will make it possible to stretch plasma discharges at high heating power to half an hour in duration.
Digital twins for fusion plasmas
A recent publication from Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) on the theoretical prediction of a novel transport barrier in a fusion plasma and its subsequent experimental confirmation (Physical Review Letters) exemplifies how dramatically the power of plasma simulations and modelling has grown in recent years. A Europe-wide project on plasma theory and simulation is to enhance this development. The aim is to create virtual plasma models as digital twins of real plasmas.
Bursting the bubble of artificial solar flares
Triggering artificial solar flares early may help protect the inner wall of fusion research devices, show EUROfusion researchers.
ORNL supporting landmark experiments
As part of a long-running collaboration with Europe, ORNL is supporting landmark experiments aiming for a fusion milestone.
Danish universities join fusion forces
The new DANfusion consortium brings together groups from four Danish universities to strengthen the nation’s fusion research.
Hungary’s secret to growing top fusion talent
In Hungary, they take coaching science talent to the next level. In the massive bi-annual Scientific Student Society Conference OTDK, over 10.000 students from all academic disciplines go beyond standard course work to do research projects with academic mentors and then show their chops to panels of international experts. After hearing from EUROfusion science advisor […]
KIT Prints Tungsten Components by Electron Beam Melting
Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, 3,422 degrees Celsius. This makes the material ideal for use at high temperatures in e.g. space rocket nozzles, heating elements of high-temperature furnaces, or the fusion reactor. However, the metal is highly brittle and, hence, difficult to process. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed an innovative approach to making this brittle material soft. To process tungsten, they have determined new process parameters for electron beam melting.
High Performance Computing and GENE-3D
High Performance Computing (HPC) has been driving advances in science, technology, medicine, and many other fields since its beginnings in the 1960s. After some years of developing the technology, the Cray-1 supercomputer debuted in 1975 with a processing capability of 160 megaFLOPS. (FLOPS stands for Floating Point Operations Per Second, which is a measure of […]