Speaker
Description
Digital engineering is reshaping fusion R&D, and the in-development Divertor Digital Twin Environment (DDTE) aims to provide an end-to-end, open-source workflow that shortens the path from late-stage divertor design to plant operation readiness. The DDTE is organised around three complementary flavours, each deliberately modular so that best-in-class community codes can be swapped in as they mature.
Design Studio – Starting from native CAD or equilibrium geometry, the pipeline invokes established mesh generators to create prototype meshes and optimises candidate diagnostics. Material and thermal properties are inserted via OMAS-compatible databases, ready for local or HPC execution.
Scenario Lab – 3D plasma-surface interaction scenarios are assembled by chaining HEAT, FUSE and, as development continues, edge-SOL solvers such as SOLPS-ITER and HERMES-3. Each run outputs time-resolved temperature, stress and erosion fields annotated with VVUQ metadata, and feeds a prognostics-and-health-management module estimating damage accumulation.
Twin Console – A divertor digital twin instance will ingest live diagnostic streams (infrared, thermocouples) and fuse sensor data before assimilating into an ensemble of scenario predictions through Bayesian state estimation. The console reconciles data gaps and forecasts lifetime & maintenance windows.
Key characteristics are: (i) free and open-source software licensing to encourage broad uptake; (ii) an intuitive GUI with scripting back-ends to assist commercialisation; (iii) active multi-institutional co-design to avoid “reinventing the wheel”; and (iv) easy-click installer and pre-built Apptainer deployment that scales from laptops to clusters. Current prototyping milestones are presented together with a roadmap that charts the next steps toward a minimally viable DDTE.
| Country or International Organisation | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | University of York |
| Speaker's email address | mike.battye@york.ac.uk |
