Modelling the damage of metallic plasma-facing components under energetic transient events in fusion reactors
Time: Mon 2025-05-12 14.00
Location: F3 (Flodis), Lindstedtsvägen 26 & 28
Video link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/62498661239
Language: English
Subject area: Electrical Engineering
Doctoral student: Konstantinos Paschalidis , Rymd- och plasmafysik
Opponent: Professor Rudolf Neu, Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching, Germany and Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany,
Supervisor: Professor Svetlana V. Ratynskaia, Rymd- och plasmafysik; Doctor Panagiotis Tolias, Rymd- och plasmafysik; Doctor Ladislas Vignitchouk, Rymd- och plasmafysik
QC 20250411
Abstract
Magnetic confinement fusion represents one of the most promising pathways to achieving sustainable and clean energy production. In this approach, strong magnetic fields are used to confine hot plasma within a device preventing it from coming into direct contact with the vessel walls. However, plasma-wall interactions remain an unavoidable challenge, as some heat and particles inevitably escape confinement, particularly during energetic transient events. These interactions pose a significant threat to the integrity of plasma-facing components (PFCs), which are subjected to extreme thermal and particle loads. Among the various forms of damage caused by such loads, melt damage is particularly concerning due to its potential to severely degrade the performance and longevity of PFCs.
To address these challenges, the MEMOS-U physics model was developed to simulate macroscopic melt motion in fusion environments. MEMOS-U simplifies the computational heavy thermoelectric magnetohydrodynamic equations by employing the shallow water approximation, which reduces the dimensionality of the problem. MEMOS-U has been validated against a series of dedicated tokamak experiments, demonstrating its ability to capture the essential features of melt motion in fusion environments.
Building on the MEMOS-U model, the MEMENTO code was developed as a modern numerical implementation designed to further enhance the predictive capabilities of melt motion simulations. MEMENTO leverages the AMReX framework to create and maintain a non-uniform, adaptive grid, enabling efficient simulations of large PFCs over long time scales. The code includes solvers for heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and current propagation, all of which are fully coupled to accurately model the interplay between thermal loading, melt motion, and electromagnetic effects.
The MEMENTO code has been validated against experimental data from dedicated controlled melting experiments carried out in the ASDEX-Upgrade and WEST tokamaks. Predictive studies with MEMENTO have provided valuable insights into the potential melt damage in future tokamaks. In summary, MEMENTO represents a significant advancement in the modeling of macroscopic melt motion in fusion environments. By implementing the MEMOS-U physics model in a new code, MEMENTO provides a reliable and computationally efficient tool able to accurately predict melt damage in future reactors for regimes that could not be probed before.