Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik - IPP

#everbuiltastar We’re hiring! …again, and again and again. Are you interested in putting your talent to the test at one of the world's leading fusion research facilities? Are you looking for new scientific challenges and want to work with leading scientists from around the world? Have you ever built a star? In order to realise our vision of a clean, sustainable and virtually inexhaustible source of energy one day, we are constantly on the lookout for aspiring young scientists as #postdocs or #PhDs. Visit us at 👉 https://lnkd.in/dd9fznHi and find out which projects are suitable for your scientific career at #IPP.

On the Path to Exascale Computing with GENE: Thanks to a great team effort, the GENE code - our flagship tool for predicting the performance of future fusion devices - has been selected for Early Access to the JUPITER exascale supercomputer at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).

The time-window was as short as the torus-hall access allowed, but we had an amazing time filming a video-clip about W7-X. Thanks Beate, Paul and Lukas - was sooooo much fun. Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik - IPP

Zum heutigen #TagDerBibliotheken: Unsere Bib 📖📚💛 im Schnelldurchlauf! #meandmylibrary #BibliothekenEntdecken #Wissensschätze #MaxPlanckInstitute #Garching #Plasmaphysik

A team from our Stellarator Theory division recently published the design for new stellarators with key properties suitable for use in power plants. The concept is so promising that private fusion companies have expressed interest in continuing their own work on this basis.   "Wendelstein 7-X is a so-called quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarator, which provides several enticing advantages over other stellarator types. Because Wendelstein 7-X has shown in experiments that these advantages are real, we decided to focus our efforts on QI stellarators specifically," explains Alan Goodman, who led the project as part of his doctoral thesis.    These new stellarators have been given the moniker “SQuIDs”: Stable Quasi-Isodynamic Designs. They exhibit highly desirable properties in computer simulations: - They limit the net toroidal current in the plasma to very low values, which is necessary for extrapolating the plasma exhaust concept of W7-X to a reactor. - They exhibit encouraging properties concerning the plasma turbulence. Therefore energy confinement should be relatively good – one of the principal goals of a fusion power plant. - High-energy particles produced by fusion reactions in the plasma do not drift out and hit the reactor wall, which would otherwise damage the plasma vessel.   SQuIDs represent the state of the art in stellarator design, in part made possible by recent developments in computational tools. The success of this work is also a result of the collective knowledge and experience of the researchers at our institute, and from the lessons learned from experiments with W7-X. These concepts would have been impossible to design five years ago. “The philosophy of our design approach was to systematically rule out design options that we realised could not be built in practice. Then, we could just focus entirely on getting the physics right,” says Alan Goodman. After all, this is one of the challenges of stellarators: due to their very complex magnetic field, stellarators need to be carefully tailored to suit practical needs, and the difference between a very good design, and a very bad design, may be very small. Further, these magnetic fields can only be the generated through the use of complex-shaped magnetic coils, which have to be specially developed for this purpose. „These designs are theoretically sound, as computationally verified by extensive simulations, but until they have been constructed, operated, and studied in the lab, one cannot know their true potential,“ explains Prof Per Helander, head of the Stellarator Theory division. „For engineers, both at IPP and in fusion startups, these new SQuIDs can be the basis for developing new magnet concepts and other technology needed for the realisation of a SQuID as an experiment or a power plant.“ Other team members: Gabriel Plunk, Pavlos Xanthopoulos, Sophia Henneberg, Håkan Smith, Carolin Nührenberg, Craig Beidler, Gareth Roberg-Clark, Michael Drevlak https://lnkd.in/evGxChBP

Where do the #tungsten atoms released from #ITER walls go?   A very timely question, as ITER is going for tungsten #plasma facing components. Sven Korving investigated the subject using the #JOREK non-linear hybrid fluid-kinetic code in his #PhD thesis, which just went online (https://lnkd.in/e_vSUdQ4).   He developed kinetic model extensions to capture scrape-off layer and #divertor physics, validated them against other codes, and applied the models to #ASDEX Upgrade and ITER plasmas with externally applied resonant magnetic perturbations (#RMPs). These RMP fields turn the initially axisymmetric configuration of the #tokamak into a complicated 3D magnetic topology. Many existing codes for plasma-wall interaction studies are limited to axisymmetric configurations, in contrast.   The work provides direct predictions for ITER regarding the impurity influx and opens up possibilities for studying entirely different research subjects related to the plasma edge, scrape-off layer and divertor region.

Artificial intelligence #AI meets magnetic confinement #fusion. Stanislas Pamela and co-authors just published an article in the scientific journal Computer Physics Communications dealing with the subject. They test the application of a parallel-in-time algorithm for non-linear magneto-hydrodynamic #JOREK simulations of the #plasma dynamics. To obtain good convergence, AI based #surrogate models are employed to precondition the implicit system of equations and reduce computational costs. For all the pretty involved details, refer to the full article online: https://lnkd.in/eGARFmGG or contact the main author ;-)

Hey Bachelor and Master Students! Are you ready to dive into the exciting world of fusion? FuseNet will organize the FuseNet Student Event! The virtual event is hosted at gather.town. You can attend inspiring talks and network with fellow students and experts. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn, connect, and grow: https://lnkd.in/dXhW82kX

In Memoriam Prof. Dr. Alexander Bradshaw (1944-2024)   We mourn the loss of our former Scientific Director, who passed away on 10 October 2024 at the age of 80. He headed the IPP from 1999 to 2008.   Alexander Bradshaw studied chemistry but made an international name for himself in the field of Surface Physics. From 1976, he worked at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. In 1980, Alexander Bradshaw was appointed director and scientific member of the Max Planck Society there.    In 1999 he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, where he headed the nuclear fusion research programme as Scientific Director until 2008. This period was marked by the development of the new stellarator experiment Wendelstein 7-X in Greifswald. His talent as a science manager was in demand here: when the major project ran into difficulties at one point, he created structures that got Wendelstein 7-X back on track. In addition, as Chair of the EFDA Steering Committee, Alexander Bradshaw played a crucial role in optimally coordinating European fusion research.   Alexander Bradshaw will always be remembered with gratitude and honour at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. He has achieved great things – for the institute and for fusion research.   We have set up a condolence page (https://lnkd.in/dhrUAdSj) for Alexander Bradshaw. If you would like to share your condolences here in the comments, we may also copy them to our condolences page.

Der Tag der offenen Tür ist zurück! Und wie! 😃 Am 3. Oktober hat der Forschungscampus Garching erstmals nach der Corona-Pandemie dazu eingeladen, Wissenschaft live zu erleben. Im Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik freuen wir uns, dass so viele Interessierte in unsere Labore gekommen sind und wir Euch im persönlichen Gespräch über den Stand und die Perspektiven der Fusionsforschung informieren durften. In Mitmach-Experimenten konntet Ihr selbst zum Forscher bzw. zur Forscherin werden. Wie die Schnitzel gefreut haben wir uns auch über diese beiden ganz speziellen Besucher: Christoph und die Maus! Fotos: IPP, Axel Griesch #TürenAuf #DieMaus #ForschungscampusGarching #TagderoffenenTür #OpenCampus #EntdeckenCheckenWissen #MaxPlanckInstitute