Fusion Power Plant Systems Codes
We explore the conceptual design and feasibility of a possible fusion power plant.
Systems codes
When studying a hypothetical fusion power plant, questions of the following type arise:
- Are the machine’s physics and engineering parameters consistent with one another?
- Which machine of a given size and shape produces the cheapest electricity?
- What is the effect of a more optimistic limit on the maximum plasma density on the amount of auxiliary power required?
Questions such as these are difficult to answer, since the large number of parameters involved are highly dependent on one another. Computer programs to address these issues are known as systems codes. CCFE has developed a systems code called “PROCESS”. The scope of PROCESS is very wide and goes well beyond reactor physics, including the heat transfer and energy conversion system, buildings etc.
PROCESS finds a set of parameters that optimise a Figure of Merit chosen by the user (such as cost of electricity or ratio of fusion power to input power), while being consistent with the inputs and the specified constraints.
If you would like collaborate by using PROCESS, or by contributing new or improved algorithms, please contact James Morris.
PROCESS documentation
- “PROCESS”: a systems code for fusion power plants – Part 1: Physics
- “PROCESS”: a systems code for fusion power plants – Part 2: Engineering
- Impurity radiation in DEMO systems modelling
- User guide to the PROCESS systems code
- Uncertainties in power plant design point evaluations
- Time-dependent power requirements for pulsed fusion reactors in systems codes
- Implications of toroidal field coil stress limits on power plant design using PROCESS
- Radiation and confinement in 0D fusion systems codes
- Implementation and verification of a HELIAS module for the systems code PROCESS
- From W7-X to a HELIAS fusion power plant: motivation and options for an intermediate-step burning-plasma stellarator
- Fast evaluation of the current driven by electron cyclotron waves for reactor studies
- Validation and sensitivity of CFETR design using EU systems codes
- Systems Studies of Double Null Divertor Models
- Dealing with uncertainties in fusion power plant conceptual development
PROCESS results
Additional information (for users with access to the CCFE Intranet)
Running PROCESS remotely
For technical assistance please email James Morris.
A new service for connecting in to the UKAEA’s computing facilities is now available to those users who have SecurID tokens. When run, the VPN in effect connects your computer into the local networks so that your device appears to be part of the UKAEA network as if you are on site.
Information about this service and instructions on setting it up and using it are available on the IT News blog here, and also on the JET Users’ website here.
If you have any queries, please contact IT Support
