L. Reali M.R. Gilbert M. Boleininger S.L. Dudarev
Neutrons interacting with atomic nuclei in most of the materials included in the current fusion reactor designs—notably tungsten, ferritic and stainless steels, copper alloys—generate a γ-photon flux that is comparable in magnitude and e…
Preprint PublishedD. Batty L. Manes A. West M. Patel I. Caliskanelli P. Paoletti
In the nuclear industry, the need for improved reliability in current and future technology hinders the deployment of autonomous robotic systems. The following research aims to develop a method of reliably mapping a large environment and abstracting the map into a sparse node graph to create a more efficient data form. The proposed data form all…
PurchaseWenxing Liu Hanlin Niu Robert Skilton Joaquin Carrasco
When transferring a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) model from simulation to the real world, the performance could be unsatisfactory since the simulation cannot imitate the real world well in many circumstances. This results in a long period of fine-tuning in the real world. This paper proposes a self-supervised vision-based DRL method that al…
PurchaseMichal Staniaszek Lara Brudermuller Raunak Bhattacharyya Bruno Lacerda Nick Hawes
We consider planning problems where a robot must visit a large set of locations to complete a task at each one. Our focus is problems where the difficulty of each task, and thus its duration, can be predicted, but not fully known in advance. We propose a general Markov decision process (MDP) model for difficulty-aware problems, and propose varia…
PurchaseM. Anderton C. Baus T. P. Davis R. Pearson K. Mukai J. Pollard K. Taylor S. Kirk J. Hagues
Tritium self-sufficiency is one of the fundamental challenges for deuterium-tritium nuclear fusion reactors. The combination of key high temperature radiation shielding materials that possess dense, high neutron absorption cross-section, and moderation properties, and tritium breeding materials could involve interesting design spaces for the centra…
PreprintWilliam Iliffe Simon Chislett-McDonald Fiona Harden Kirk Adams James Tufnail Chris Grovenor Susannah Speller Aidan Reilly Ezzat Nasr
The UKAEA’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program aims to demonstrate the ability of a low aspect ratio tokamak to generate net electricity from deuterium-tritium fusion. Specifically, its aim is to deliver a prototype fusion power plant, targeting 2040, and a path to the commercial viability of fusion, by engaging with and invig…
PreprintChris Brown Hanni Lux James Cowan
Developments in fusion energy technology and the aspiration to build and run commercial fusion energy power plants has seen the commencement of numerous publicly and privately funded projects in recent years. Megaprojects, like fusion power plants, by their very nature are inherently complex and risky, therefore providing a robust cost estimate in …
PreprintJ. Hargreaves H. Tipping J.C. Eloi L. Harding H. Dominguez Andrade H. Dawson T.L Martin
Severe plasma transients such as disruptions will impose high magnitude, short duration thermal loads on the plasma-facing first wall of the EU’s DEMOnstration tokamak. Repeated over DEMO’s lifetime, these transients may cumulatively alter the microstructure of first wall structural materials, degrading their performance. The effects of repeate…
Preprint PublishedValentine Kanyanta
Fusion is considered as one of the most attractive carbon-free energy sources with the potential to play a vital role in meeting long-term global energy needs. Research into fusion has accelerated over the past few years with more participation now seen from the private sector. Fusion is making an important transition from fundamental research t…
PreprintA. Matejunas L. Fletcher L. Lamberson
Due to the strong rate dependence in their mechanical response, polymers find widespread use in applications subject to impact loading. However, characterizing these materials on microsecond time scales has proven challenging. Traditional experimental techniques rely on satisfying a number of limiting assumptions and typically do not provide direct…
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