3 research outputs found
Nuclear fusion reactor materials: modelling atomic-scale irradiation damage in metal
Achieving nuclear fusion as an energy source on Earth is a
practical goal that relies on continuing scientific and
engineering innovation. Functional fusion reactors around the
world today allow scientists and engineers to plan
improvements that will eventually allow for greater energy
output than the input required to operate the machine (including
heating the plasma and operating the superconducting
electromagnets that confine the plasma, among other energy
inputs). The fusion reaction between nuclei of hydrogen
isotopes is a carbon-free source of massive amounts of energy
that could be paramount in a global turn towards greener energy.
The fusion fuel needed to provide one person’s energy use for
100 years (assuming 20 kWh per day) is contained within
roughly one and a half bathtubs of water and 3 laptop batteries.
Given the enormous payoff of fusion, continued research and
development are of great interest so that current challenges of
heating and confining plasma, mitigating plasma disruptions,
improving efficiency of magnets, and extending the lifetime of
materials subjected to the harsh conditions surrounding the
plasma may be overcome. Fusion reactor materials research
carried out here at the BSC contributes to this ambitious goal.
The idealistic goal for fusion materials research is to provide
predictions about material behavior with the accuracy of
quantum mechanical calculations at the scale of a full fusion
reactor. Using strategic approximations and working at a small
scale, computational fusion materials researchers can
accurately reproduce and explain experimentally observed
physical phenomena, such as the formation of microstructural
defects in metals under neutron-irradiation, and offer the best
predictions available for behavior of materials in future fusion
reactor environments, where data about what will happen
simply do not exist yet.
In the study presented here, we examined the thermal
conductivity, or how quickly a material allows heat to flow, of
tungsten (W). W has been selected for plasma-facing
components in ITER, which is currently under construction.
We used LAMMPS atomic modelling of materials software and
found that the thermal conductivity of W is significantly
decreased in the presence of defects
Fold Lens Flux Anomalies: A Geometric Approach
We develop a new approach for studying flux anomalies in quadruply-imaged
fold lens systems. We show that in the absence of substructure, microlensing,
or differential absorption, the expected flux ratios of a fold pair can be
tightly constrained using only geometric arguments. We apply this technique to
11 known quadruple lens systems in the radio and infrared, and compare our
estimates to the Monte Carlo based results of Keeton, Gaudi, and Petters. We
show that a robust estimate for a flux ratio from a smoothly varying potential
can be found, and at long wavelengths those lenses deviating from from this
ratio almost certainly contain significant substructure.Comment: 16 pages, including 8 figure