FPN02-82

Fusion Simulation Project Urged

December 26, 2002

In a December 10, 2002 letter to USDOE Office of Science Director Raymond Orbach, Richard Hazeltine, Chairman of the DOE's Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) said "FESAC's unqualified endorsement" had been given to the report of its Subcommittee on Integrated Simulation & Optimization of Fusion Systems (ISOFS). That subcommittee, chaired by Jill Dahlburg (General Atomics) recommended "a major initiative be undertaken...[to create] a comprehensive set of theoretical fusion models, an architecture for bringing together the disparate physics models, combined with the algorithms and computational infrastructure that enables the models to work together." Hazeltine said "FESAC considers the advanced computation frontier examined in the report as one of the most exciting in its purview."

The Subcommittee report says the initiative, referred to as the Fusion Simulation Project, would have as its purpose "to make a significant advance within five years toward the ultimate objective of fusion simulation: to predict reliably the behaviour of plasma discharges in a toroidal magnetic fusion device on all relevant time and space scales." The panel said "The long-term (15 year) goal is in essence the capability for carrying out 'virtual experiments' of a burning magnetically confined plasma, implying predictive capability over many energy-confinement times, faithful representations of the salient physics processes of the plasma, and inclusion of the interactions with the external world (sources, control systems and bounding surfaces)." The panel said that success of the initiative will require coordinated and focused advances in fusion physics, applied mathematics and computer science. They provided a detailed outline for setting up and overseeing the project.

The full report is posted at http://wwwofe.er.doe.gov/News.html