Modelling materials for fusion power

Abstract

Fusion has the potential for delivering safe, clean, low carbon power; however, significant scientific and engineering hurdles must first be overcome. One such hurdle is the design of materials that will withstand the harsh conditions. The materials which line the vessel walls will experience exceptionally high heat and particle fluxes, which will gradually erode the materials and contaminate the plasma. The deuterium–tritium fusion reaction will produce high energy neutrons, which will create defects and transmutation reactions in the vessel walls. These defects, along with the transmutation gasses, evolve over time and change the microstructure and properties of the material. In order to design suitable materials for fusion, the radiation damage, and its evolution over time, must be understood and evaluated for a broad class of materials. Modelling has a vital role to play because it can provide details about processes that occur on length and timescales that are inaccessible to experiment. In this review, the challenges that face designers of fusion power plants are discussed. The modelling techniques that are used to model radiation effects are described and the links between modelling and experiment are discussed. The review concludes with a discussion about the future direction for fusion materials research.

Keywords:

• Materials modelling
• Fusion materials
• Radiation damage
• Molecular dynamics
• Radiation induced embrittlement
• Plasma facing materials
• Review

We gratefully acknowledge support from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.