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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Jose-Carlos Rivas, Javier Dies
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 825-829
Computational Tools, Modeling & Validation | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12488
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this contribution, an upgraded model for plasma-wall interaction in the AINA code is presented. The AINA code is a comprehensive hybrid code comprising a global balance plasma dynamics model and a radial and poloidal thermal analysis of in-vessel components. AINA is an evolution of the SAFALY code, which was initially adopted to assess ITER EDA plasma safety events and quantitatively investigate plasma instability events in nuclear fusion reactors such as ITER.The new erosion code module includes algorithms for the most relevant plasma wall interaction phenomena that will take place in the ITER vessel during the steady state of the normal operation. Physical sputtering, radiation enhanced sublimation (RES), and chemical erosion algorithms have been added to the previous thermal sublimation algorithm. The erosion results from these models have been benchmarked with results for ITER normal operation from the B2-Eirene code.The new erosion model had to be tested with external data for particle fluxes over the wall, because the AINA code does not presently have the ability to model those particle fluxes. However, with the new results, the impurity transport model parameters have been re-calibrated and some useful conclusions have been extracted.