Modelling kinetic effects on the heat exhaust in high power tokamaks

在布鲁内尔大学完成机械工程硕士学位后，我在能源行业担任了五年的燃烧计算流体动力学专家。我加入CDT是为了实现我长期以来的梦想，即转向核聚变，并为其未来的商业化做出贡献。我的项目名为“高功率托卡马克热排气动力学效应的建模”，将由约克的Chris Ridgers博士和Ben Dudson博士监督。它涉及到等离子体边缘的模拟-一个区域，在那里等离子体废气被导向偏滤器的托卡马克的磁场。在更强大的反应堆中，这可能会使偏滤器暴露在已知材料无法承受的热通量下。将热负荷最小化到可管理的水平提出了几个尚未解决的挑战，并且是确保ITER，DEMO和STEP等高功率输出反应堆性能的关键。目前最先进的等离子体边缘模型假设局部热力学平衡（LTE）。该项目将通过使用新的、开创性的非LTE模型来挑战这一假设，这些模型与ITER以前获得的结果有很大的不同。这项工作将探讨使用这种新方法的影响，进一步了解等离子体排气和偏滤器现象，重点是评估减轻偏滤器热负荷的策略。

Following the completion of my MEng in Mechanical Engineering at Brunel University, I spent five years as a combustion computational fluid dynamics specialist in the energy industry. I have joined the CDT to fulfil my long-standing dream of switching to nuclear fusion and to contribute towards its future commercialisation. My project is titled "Modelling Kinetic Effects on the Heat Exhaust in High Power Tokamaks" and will be supervised by Dr Chris Ridgers and Dr Ben Dudson based in York. It concerns the simulations of the plasma edge - a region where the plasma exhaust is directed towards the divertor by the tokamak's magnetic fields. In more powerful reactors, this can expose the divertor to heat fluxes beyond what known materials can withstand. Minimising the heat loading to manageable levels poses several yet-unsolved challenges, and is key to ensuring performance in high power output reactors such as ITER, DEMO and STEP. Current state-of-the-art models of the plasma edge assume local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). This project will challenge this assumption by using new, pioneering non-LTE models, which have shown significant departures from previous results obtained for ITER. This work will explore the impact of using this new approach on furthering our understanding of plasma exhaust and divertor phenomena, with a focus on assessing strategies for mitigating divertor heat loading.