Structural Integrity of W-CuCrZr composite with optimised topology for nuclear fusion

核聚变在提供可持续和清洁的电力来源方面具有巨大的潜力，但在实现这一目标之前，必须克服巨大的材料工程挑战。实现下一代核聚变发电厂对能够承受和在极端环境下运行的新型金属材料提出了重大要求。钨铜复合材料是新一代等离子体面聚变材料。该项目旨在开发钨铜复合材料的工艺路线，并通过多尺度力学和微观结构表征对钨铜复合材料的失效有一个基本的了解。有了这一新的认识，我们将开发一种基于成像的有限元预测模型，用于优化钨-铜界面的拓扑结构，从而使热交换器的热弹性更强，使用寿命更长。

Nuclear fusion has enormous potential to offer a sustainable and clean electricity source, but great materials engineering challenges must be overcome before this can be realised. Enabling the next generation of nuclear fusion power plants places significant demand on new metallic materials which can withstand and operate in extreme environments. Tungsten-cooper composites are next generation plasma facing fusion materials. This project aims to develop a process route for tungsten-cooper composites and create a fundamental understanding of the failure in tungsten-cooper composites via multiscale mechanical and microstructure characterisation. With this new understanding, we will develop an imaging-based finite element predictive model for optimising the topology of the tungsten-cooper interface to enable the manufacturing of a heat exchanger with greater thermal resilience and improved service life.