Nuclear Fusion Engineering

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Science and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 4941

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organization (DEIM), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Interests: power supplies and electrical systems in nuclear fusion; computational electromagnetics; plasma modeling; superconductivity; bioelectromagnetism
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Guest Editor
National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), 00044 Frascati, Italy
Interests: electrical and electronic systems for nuclear fusion and experimental physics; power electronics; energy storage; applied electromagnetics; applied nanotechnology; modeling and simulation; measurement and testing techniques
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is expected to be a safe, non-polluting and virtually limitless energy resource. In the future, it is foreseen that nuclear fusion power plants could spread all over the world into the energy production context, reducing the contribution to electricity coming from fossil fuels and other polluting resources. The achievement of such a goal requires the solution of many challenging problems in a wide range of engineering fields, requiring the discovery of novel solutions and the development of new technologies. This Special Issue entitled “Nuclear Fusion Engineering” aims at collecting scientific and technical manuscripts on the technical and theoretical aspects of the most important issues to be faced in designing and safely operating a future nuclear fusion power plant. The key focus of the Special Issue is to describe the current state of art, emerging technologies, and new technical solutions, under investigation in nuclear fusion engineering, including (but not limiting to) the following key topics:

  1. Balance of plant in a nuclear fusion facility;
  2. High-current and high-voltage power supplies;
  3. Electrical distribution systems for pulsed loads;
  4. High-performance (electric, magnetic, and thermal) energy storage systems;
  5. Solutions and layouts for cooling and heat transport;
  6. Power conversion, power generation, and connection to the external grid;
  7. The thermo-mechanical design of structural elements and plasma-facing components;
  8. Advances in applied superconductivity;
  9. Heating and current drive technologies;
  10. Nuclear and real-time diagnostics;
  11. Plasma scenario design, optimization, and control;
  12. Solutions for power exhaust management;
  13. Technologies for tritium extraction and fuel cycle;
  14. Safety and reliability issues in nuclear fusion;
  15. The design and management of experimental facilities.

Dr. Simone Minucci
Dr. Alessandro Lampasi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Nuclear fusion
  • High-current and high-voltage power supplies
  • Pulsed loads
  • Energy storage
  • Electromechanical and thermomechanical analysis
  • Balance of plant of nuclear fusion facilities
  • Power conversion system in nuclear fusion facilities
  • Applied superconductivity
  • Heating and current drive
  • Applied cryogeny
  • Power exhaust
  • Safety and RAMI analysis
  • Nuclear and real-time diagnostics
  • Fuel cycle

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3661 KiB  
Article
Design of the CIEMAT Corrosion Loop for Liquid Metal Experiments
by Elisabetta Carella, David Rapisarda and Stephan Lenk
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 3104; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12063104 - 18 Mar 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1930
Abstract
The main components of a liquid breeder blanket in a fusion power reactor are lead lithium alloy (PbLi) and the steel structure in which the liquid is enclosed (EUROFER). Several compatibility tests have shown that structural materials always suffer from corrosion attacks. The [...] Read more.
The main components of a liquid breeder blanket in a fusion power reactor are lead lithium alloy (PbLi) and the steel structure in which the liquid is enclosed (EUROFER). Several compatibility tests have shown that structural materials always suffer from corrosion attacks. The governing mechanism can be attributed to the dissolution of the steel by the liquid breeder and is strongly related to the PbLi chemistry, velocity profile, and temperature. A new facility, CiCLo-C (CIEMAT Corrosion Loop, Internally Coated), is dedicated to the study of corrosion in materials under the severe breeding blanket condition. An effort was made to design an experimental facility with a specific test section able to work at quite ambitious operation parameters: up to 550 °C and a 1 m/s flow of PbLi. Furthermore, an innovative tantalum coating was introduced in the whole loop to avoid impurities coming from the pipeline, which can disturb the measurements, and to better preserve the installation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear Fusion Engineering)
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14 pages, 1845 KiB  
Article
Preliminary Design of the Electrical Power Systems for DTT Nuclear Fusion Plant
by Marzia Caldora, Maria Carmen Falvo, Alessandro Lampasi and Gianluca Marelli
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(12), 5446; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11125446 - 11 Jun 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 1812
Abstract
The realization of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is one of the key milestones of the European Roadmap, aiming to explore alternative power exhaust solutions for DEMO, the first nuclear-fusion power plant that will be connected to the European grid. For the [...] Read more.
The realization of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is one of the key milestones of the European Roadmap, aiming to explore alternative power exhaust solutions for DEMO, the first nuclear-fusion power plant that will be connected to the European grid. For the actual implementation of the DTT and DEMO plants, it is necessary to define the structure of the internal electric power distribution system, able to supply unconventional loads with a sufficient level of reliability. The present paper reports the preliminary studies for the feasibility and realization of the electrical power systems of DTT, describing the methodology adopted to obtain a first distribution configuration and providing some simulation results. In particular, the first stage of the study deals with the survey and characterization of the electrical loads, which allows defining a general layout of the facility and size the main electrical components. To verify the correctness of the assumptions, simulation models of the grid were implemented in the DIgSILENT PowerFactory software in order to carry out power flow and fault analyses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear Fusion Engineering)
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