MoD-PMI 201918, June 2019

Introduction of National
Institute for Fusion Science(NIFS)
Takeo Muroga
Deputy Director General
National Institute for Fusion Science1

NIFS Overview○ Established in May, 1989 as an Interuniversity Research Institute for promoting
collaborations with Japanese Universities for plasma science and its application. (30thanniversary celebration carried out in May 2019)○ Large Helical Device (LHD) was constructed and has been operated as the corefacility and activity of NIFS.
○ Presently LHD Project, Numerical Simulation Reactor Research Project, Fusion
Engineering Research Project, and international collaboration are promoted.
Statistics in 2018
• Organization structure▫ 126 researchers, 45 engineers & technicians, 42administration staff▫ 53 graduate students▫ about 100 of contract employees• Budgetary condition▫ 8,456million yen which includes salary, operational costs ofLHD, Supercomputer and other facilities▫ 4,100million yen for LHD operation• Collaboration programs▫ 538 subjects have been approved as collaborative
researches in three collaboration programs

Entrance

LHD Building

Fusion Research Activities in Japanfor FY 2018

National Institute for Quantum and Radiological
Science and Technology (QST) Naka-site

JT-60SA Tokamak

6

National Institute for Quantum and Radiological
Science and Technology (QST) Rokkasho-site

IFMIF-EVEDA•
1261758
161722NIFS LHD
Total numbers ofuniversities and research
institutes undercollaboration with NIFS: 154

3International collaborations
Agreements representing the Japanese government
・ 6 bilateral agreements (with Australia, China, EU, Korea, Russia, USA)・ 3 multilateral agreements (IEA-Technology Collaboration Programms)
Human exchange
by leading programsin 2017

J/US

J/China

J/KoreaInt. Baseman

Day

man

day

man

day

man

day

to NIFS/Japan

81360

761

45

163

671

from NIFS/Japan71

777

41258

34157

18166

Max-Planck IPP(Germany) Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic Univ.(Russia)
FOM Inst. (Netherlands) ● ●GPI (Russia)●Kurchatov Inst.(Russia)●● ●KIT(Germany) ●●FZU (Czech)
IPPLM(Poland) Peking Univ.(China)● CNRS ●CIEMAT ● ●Marseile Univ
NFRI (Korea)
ASIPP(Spain)●CEA Kharikov Inst.
(China) ● ●(France) (Ukraine)●SWJTU ●●SWIP(China)●RFX(China)●IGI●Chiang Mai Univ.(Thailand)(Italia)●TINT(Thailand)●ITER

Academic exchange agreementwith 29 institutes● Wisconsin Univ. Madison(USA) ●PPPL(USA)●ORNL(USA)●UCLA●IFS, Texas Univ. Austin
(USA)
(USA)

Lead standard databasein fusion science• Promotion of collaboration and joint work
• Human resource development/education• Confinement physics database• Atomic-molecular database●Australian Nat. Univ.
(Australia)

4

NIFS carries out three projects by promoting collaboration withuniversities• Large Helical Device Project pursuits to achieve highest
performance plasma in Heliotron configuration▫
▫
▫

Enhancement of plasma parameters toward reactor relevant regime
Heating, diagnostics, closed divertors, PWI and other technological progress
Physics of 3-D plasma and isotope effects• Numerical Simulation Reactor Research Project develops

numerical simulation methods as the basis of numericalresearch for helical reactors▫
▫
▫

Understanding and systemizing physical mechanisms in fusion plasmas
Development of theoretical models for plasma behaviors and their validation
Integration of predictive models in a whole machine range• Fusion Engineering Research Project proceeds fusion engineeringresearch to solve key issues of the helical demo reactor▫
▫

Development of superconducting magnet, blanket, low activation materials,
divertor / plasma facing components, and tritium control systemHelical reactor design studies

Collaboration among the three projects are highly promoted5

NIFS carries out three projects by promoting collaboration withuniversities• Large Helical Device Project pursuits to achieve highest
performance plasma in Heliotron configuration▫
▫
▫

Enhancement of plasma parameters toward reactor relevant regime
Heating, diagnostics, closed divertors, PWI and other technological progress
Physics of 3-D plasma and isotope effects• Numerical Simulation Reactor Research Project develops

numerical simulation methods as the basis of numericalresearch for helical reactors▫
▫
▫

Understanding and systemizing physical mechanisms in fusion plasmas
Development of theoretical models for plasma behaviors and their validation
Integration of predictive models in a whole machine range• Fusion Engineering Research Project proceeds fusion engineeringresearch to solve key issues of the helical demo reactor▫
▫

Development of superconducting magnet, blanket, low activation materials,
divertor / plasma facing components, and tritium control system
Helical reactor design studies6

Large Helical Device (ＬＨＤ)

One of the world largest helical devices
Height: ~ 9 m
Diameter: ~ 13 m
Mass: ~ 1500 t
Experiment started in March 1998

Inner view of vacuum vessel

LHD has proceeded to the new research phase
Deuterium experiment started in March 2017 and will last 9 years

8Status Report from LHD
Deuterium experiment (2017~) has
extended LHD operational regime

 Fusion-relevant Ti = 10 keV was firstachieved in stellarator/heliotron

Fusion triple product(by courtesy of M. Kikuchi)

9Initial growth phase of the W-fuzz structure was observed in the LHD
 Total time：10190s (22 shot of He)
 Surface temp.: 1500K-2300K
 Incident He energy: ~100 eV He flux : ~5×1021 He/m2s
 He fluence： ~5×1025 He/m2

Cross-sectional TEM
image

Material probe systemIRcameraW(80x30x1.5mm3 )

20nm
SEM
image

PlasmaThe finest initial growth phaseof the fuzz structure(divertor strike point)
M. Tokitani et al., Nuclear
Materials and Energy 12 (2017)
1358–1362

100nm

10

Exhaust Behavior and Mass Balance of Tritium
Exhaust detritiation system with precise detector revealed
tritium behavior in LHD (2017)35.5 % of produced tritium
was exhausted until theend of the first D-campaign,and 64 % was still retainedin vacuum vessel orevacuation system
Out of the retained tritium,
half is stored in the divertor
platesTritium amount [Bq]

1 10108 10

96 1094 1092 10

9Tritium inventory in LHD
Tritium exhaust rate:
Exhausted tritium
35.5 %

Tritium exhaust rate:
5.1 %017/3/12

17/4/917/5/7

17/6/4

17/7/2

17/7/30

Mass balance of tritium during the first
deuterium experimental campaign fromMarch 6 to August 711Next Stage of LHD – Steady State Operation
Presentmachine

Large Tokamak

LHD
JT-60SA (QST)

Near futuremachine

ITER

Next Stage of LHD

Plasmasustainment
1(sec)

101001000104

Fuel cycling, impurity transfer
Erosion and deposition of walls

Short time scale
MHD

Diffusion and microstructural evolution of wall materials

Current diffusion

Wave/particle
interaction

Energy/particle
confinement

Atomic/molecularprocesses

・W cycle and impact on plasma
・Multi-scale interactions

Mass/particle balanceLong time scale

Particle and energy cycle
Plasma-wall interaction is the critical issue
for the steady state operation

12

NIFS carries out three projects by promoting collaboration withuniversities• Large Helical Device Project pursuits to achieve highest
performance plasma in Heliotron configuration▫
▫
▫

Enhancement of plasma parameters toward reactor relevant regime
Heating, diagnostics, closed divertors, PWI and other technological progress
Physics of 3-D plasma and isotope effects• Numerical Simulation Reactor Research Project develops

numerical simulation methods as the basis of numericalresearch for helical reactors▫
▫
▫

Understanding and systemizing physical mechanisms in fusion plasmas
Development of theoretical models for plasma behaviors and their validation
Integration of predictive models in a whole machine range• Fusion Engineering Research Project proceeds fusion

engineering research to solve key issues of the helical demo reactor▫
▫

Development of superconducting magnet, blanket, low activation materials,
divertor / plasma facing components, and tritium control system
Helical reactor design studies

13Extensive simulation code developments and comparisons
between simulation and experiments towards
numerical helical test reactor
Turbulent transport(GKV-X)

Edge plasma (EMC3EIRENE)

Plasma-wall interaction(MD-MC)High energy particle (MEGA)

Non-linear MHD(MINOS,MIPS,NORM)

Neoclassical transport(FORTEC-3D)

Integrated transport code(TASK3D)

VR visualization

14

Recent research activities of NSRP for PWI
Fuzzy structure formation by BCA-MD-KMC multi-hybrid simulation
Helium injection into polycrystalline W
BCA-MD-KMC multi-hybrid for fuzzy formation solves- He injection by BCA (binary collision approx.)- He diffusion by KMC (kinetic Monte-Carlo)- W deformation by MD (molecular dynamics)

Binary-collision-approximation–based simulation of helium
injection into polycrystalline

15

PLASMA SIMULATORSupercomputer system for numericalsimulation research at NIFS(“Plasma Simulator”) was replaced
by Fujitsu PRIMEHPC FX100 withthe total peak performance about 2.62
Petaflops, and the total main memory
about 81TB in 2015.

(Right): Snapshot of present
plasma simulator, FX100,( peak speed: ~2.62PF,
memory: ~81TB,period: 2015-2019)

7500
7,561
5,837

5000

4,608

2500
1,517944 902 901

1,629 1,7950

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

(Left): Peak performances of plasma
simulator and numbers of submitted
jobs per month in the second mid-term
period16

NIFS carries out three projects by promoting collaboration withuniversities• Large Helical Device Project pursuits to achieve highest
performance plasma in Heliotron configuration▫
▫
▫

Enhancement of plasma parameters toward reactor relevant regime
Heating, diagnostics, closed divertors, PWI and other technological progress
Physics of 3-D plasma and isotope effects• Numerical Simulation Reactor Research Project develops

numerical simulation methods as the basis of numericalresearch for helical reactors▫
▫
▫

Understanding and systemizing physical mechanisms in fusion plasmas
Development of theoretical models for plasma behaviors and their validationIntegration of predictive models in a whole machine range• Fusion Engineering Research Project proceeds fusion engineeringresearch to solve key issues of the helical demo reactor▫
▫

Development of superconducting magnet, blanket, low activation materials,
divertor / plasma facing components, and tritium control system
Helical reactor design studies

17

Research Roadmap of FERP
2019

Engineering design offusion reactors

18Helical reactor FFHR design integration
Operation point is explored using
systems code “HELIOSCOPE”
based on “Direct Profile
Extrapolation (DPE)” from LHD
experiment dataFusion Gain of 15 was demonstrated

Innovative ideas have been integrated(1) to overcome difficulties with 3D structure(2) to enhance passive safety(3) to improve plant efficiency

19

Facilities Installed into NIFS for Collaboration
with Universities
These allows
characterizationsof the specimens
exposed to D-D
plasma of LHD

PWI, PFC
oriented facilities

20

“ACT- 2” 300 kW Electron Beam for Divertor Testing

Divertor component
planned to beinstalled into LHD

Divertor mock-ups (upper: small,lower: large) fabricated by bondingtungsten plates to ODS-Cu blockusing advanced blazing technique/(W/BNi-6/GlidCop)
The small divertor test sample
showed heat flux resistance to 24
MW/m221

SUMMARY• NIFS is an Interuniversity Research Institute promoting
collaborations mainly with Universities and international
partners for plasma and fusion research.
• Large Helical Device (LHD) is the core facility which enteredrecently to D-D operation phase, and is planning to enhancesteady-state operation research.
• In addition to LHD, Numerical Simulation Reactor Research
Project and Fusion Engineering Research Project arecarried out.
• For these Project researches, Plasma-Wall Interaction is thecritically important research subject.
• Thus, for us, collaboration with PMI Model/Data community
is crucially important.
22