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November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
DOE awards $134M for fusion research and development
The Department of Energy announced on Wednesday that it has awarded $134 million in funding for two programs designed to secure U.S. leadership in emerging fusion technologies and innovation. The funding was awarded through the DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program in the Office of Science and will support the next round of Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) collaboratives and the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) awards.
J. R. Nicholas, P. T. Ireland, D. Hancock, D. Robertson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 566-573
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1350483
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The necessity to handle heat loads in the MW/m2 range has become increasingly prevalent in a number of industries. Termed high-heat flux cooling, some of the most challenging conditions in this field occur at the first wall and divertor regions of a fusion tokamak. Steady-state heat fluxes here may reach values in excess of 10 MW/m2 in some areas for a first stage DEMO. The situation is exasperated further by the environment within the machine, which severely alters material properties with time. Even coolant choice itself can have an impact beyond thermal considerations through tritium inventory and neutron activation. Successfully addressing these issues is of critical importance to the development of commercial fusion power. A number of heat sink modules utilising jet impingement in a flat plate geometry were manufactured using diffusion bonding. Each sample produced was subject to leak and hydrostatic pressure measurements, together with further non-destructive analyses. Thermo-fluid measurements were performed on the components in a purpose built facility employing water as the coolant at pressures of up to 200 bar. To replicate the thermal boundary conditions a resistive thin-film heater technique was utilised. This allowed heat fluxes in the MW/m2 range to be applied to the modules. The results indicate that the concept may be a viable alternative heat sink candidate for first wall or divertor applications in a DEMO, but that further research is required to optimise certain aspects of the design.