Advanced virtual design of 3D printed fusion reactor components

3D打印（增材制造）是一项新兴技术，有可能在聚变反应堆组件的设计方面取得重大突破，特别是因为它可以更容易和更便宜地制造使用传统方法难以制造或成本高昂的几何复杂部件。一个示例应用领域是在聚变反应堆冷却剂通道的表面上添加小尺度特征，以帮助改善热性能。这里的设计过程包括评估打印部件的坚固性或结构完整性以及冷却剂对小尺寸特征的侵蚀潜力。这需要能够在多个长度和时间尺度上量化耦合物理过程（传热和传质）的影响。建立能够再现聚变反应堆预期条件的物理实验是困难的，因此该项目将使用并扩展我们的内部工程模拟工具，以评估真实的增材制造组件的数字孪生模型。双胞胎的复杂几何形状，包括内部微观结构特征，如空隙和缺陷，将使用3D成像设备捕获。这些图像将被转换为工程模型，并使用专为超级计算机设计的软件进行评估。其目的是开发一个虚拟设计工作流程，可用于迭代提高3D打印聚变反应堆组件的预测性能。

3D printing (additive manufacturing) is an emerging technology that has the potential to enable important breakthroughs in the design of fusion reactor components, particularly as it makes it easier and cheaper to manufacture geometrically complex parts that are difficult or costly to make using conventional means. An example application area is the addition of small-scale features to the surfaces of fusion reactor coolant channels to help improve thermal performance. The design process here involves assessing the robustness or structural integrity of the printed part and the potential for erosion of the small-scale features by the coolant. This requires the ability to quantify the effects of coupled physical processes (heat and mass transfer) at multiple length and time scales. Setting up physical experiments that can reproduce the conditions expected in a fusion reactor is difficult, so this project will use and extend our in-house engineering simulation tools to evaluate digital twins of real, additively manufactured components. The complex geometry of the twins, including internal micro-structural features such as voids and defects, will be captured using 3D imaging facilities. The images will be converted to engineering models that will be evaluated using software designed for use on supercomputers. The aim is to develop a virtual design workflow that can be used to iteratively improve the predicted performance of 3D printed Fusion Reactor components.