D. Kumar J. Hargreaves A. Bharj A. Scorror L. M. Harding H. Dominguez-Andrade R. Holmes R. Burrows H. Dawson A. D. Warren P.E.J. Flewitt T.L. Martin
Plasma-wall interactions in a commercial-scale fusion power station may exert high transient thermal loads on plasma-facing surfaces, repeatedly subjecting underlying structural materials to high temperatures for short durations. Specimens of the reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steel Eurofer-97 were continuously aged at constant temperat…
Preprint PublishedA. Piccione J.W. Berkery S.A. Sabbagh Y. Andreopoulos
One of the biggest challenges to achieve the goal of producing fusion energy in tokamak devices is the necessity of avoiding disruptions of the plasma current due to instabilities. The Disruption Event Characterization and Forecasting (DECAF) framework has been developed in this purpose, integrating physics models of many causal events that can …
PreprintOlga Vilkhivskaya Mark Gilbert
Recent studies of the neutron irradiation conditions predicted in the plasma-exposed first wall of a conceptual design of fusion DEMO power plant implementing the SPECTRA-PKA code have shown the importance of taking into consideration per-channel analysis of the high-energy threshold reactions for an accurate evaluation of their contribution to …
PreprintGreg Bailey Mark Gilbert Olga Vilkhivskaya
The public perception of fusion power is that it will provide a clean source of abundant nuclear energy. This is not wholly accurate. Currently planned fusion reactors will use the deuterium-tritium (DT) reaction for power generation. This reaction produces 14 MeV neutrons which, as they cannot be magnetically confined, impinge upon the reactor str…
PreprintSteve Bradnam Vytautas Astromskas Zamir Ghani Mark R. Gilbert Malcolm J. Joyce Lee W. Packer
Conventional means of fast neutron detection typically involves moderation and subsequent detection of thermal neutrons via gas filled detectors such as He-3, or alternatively indirect neutron detection via gamma activation systems. Whilst these are often the most conclusive systems for neutron detection, inherent timing and energy information asso…
PreprintB Chapman R O Dendy S C Chapman K G McClements R Ochoukov
Observations have recently been made of ion cyclotron emission (ICE) that originates from the core plasma in the DIII-D and ASDEX-Upgrade tokamaks. In some of these cases, the ICE spectral peaks correspond to the local cyclotron harmonic frequencies of fusion-born ions close to the magnetic axis. This is in contrast to the hitherto usual spatial lo…
PreprintShu Huang Ryan Kerr Samuel Murphy Mark R. Gilbert Jaime Marian
We present a numerical model to predict oxide scale growth on tungsten surfaces under exposure to oxygen at high temperatures. The model captures the formation of four thermodynamically-compatible oxide sublayers, WO2, WO2.72, WO2.9, and WO3, on top of the metal substrate. Oxide layer growth is simulated by tracking the oxide/oxide and oxide/metal …
PreprintWilliam Iliffe Kirk Adams Nianhua Peng Greg Brittles Rod Bateman Aidan Reilly Chris Grovenor Susannah Speller
Commercial fusion power plants will require strong magnetic fields that can only be achieved using state-of-the-art high temperature superconductors in the form of REBCO coated conductors. In operation in a fusion machine, the magnet windings will be exposed to fast neutrons that are known to adversely affect the superconducting properties of RE…
Preprint PublishedJ.A.Bromley R.Vale M.R.GIlbert
The paper looks at a selective smelting regime where higher activity components are smelted with lower activity components with the aim to reduce the amount of ILW waste for disposal. This has been applied to the European DEMO Fusion Plant HCPB 2015 baseline design waste assessment. The paper assesses the structural steels in the breeder blanket…
PreprintM. Giacomin D. Dickinson D. Kennedy B. Patel C. M. Roach
Linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations are performed in experimentally relevant scenarios built from a MAST case where a microtearing mode instability dominates at ion Larmor radius scale. This collisional microtearing mode instability appears only when a vel…
Preprint Published