EUROfusion WPCD

Our involvment

• Development and maintenance of the WPCD Portal
  • Development of the Portal started during our previous collaboration with the EFDA Task Force ITM (Integrated Tokamak Modelling)
  • The Portal represents a unique access point to a set of tools developed for the activities, running on HPC (High Performance Computing) facilities
  • For this purpose, various new technologies were developed:
    • the Identity Provider, part of the Single Sign On solution
    • a mechanism for executing applications on the HPC system and displaying results in the Portal
• Provision of atomic data in support of the AMNS activity (complementary research project)

Background

EFDA Published “Fusion Electricity – A roadmap to the realisation of fusion energy” in November 2012 that sets out a strategic vision to demonstrate the generation of electrical power by a Demonstration Fusion Power Plant (DEMO) by 2050. The roadmap elaborates 8 strategic missions to tackle the main challenges in achieving this overall goal. The need for the Code Development for Integrated Modelling Project is derived from the following statement within the Roadmap:

Annex 10.3 “integrated modelling towards a 'numerical tokamak' requires a large coordinated effort between model generation, implication, validation and integration. In particular, the following priorities can be identified:

• Building confidence in the predictive capability of the integrated modelling tools - to meet this goal an exhaustive programme in numerical code verification and experimental physics validation involving a broad range of expertises need to be supported over a range of devices.
• Providing broad access to the integrated modelling tools both as a production level facility and as a test bed for new developments - to meet this goal the supporting code integration framework and comPMUtational resources need to be established and made available. The access and use of a centrally maintained suite of modelling tools provide also the necessary basis for experimental validation over the full range of facilities (including spherical tokamaks and stellarators).
• Supporting the development of modular sets of codes and modules covering a range of physics areas at different physics fidelity targeting the needs of integrated modelling – the transition in terms of robustness and performance needed in going from research to production level codes need to be supported.In addition, the research needs stemming from coupled multi-scale physics as well as the challenge of bridging multiple numerical techniques within a single framework provides a research area of its own.”

The Work Plan goes on to elaborate the Roadmap further regarding the Code Development for Integrated Modelling:

Section 2 “Theory and modelling is an essential part of the Work Plan. Theory and modelling activities are linked to and supported by the campaign or other Work Packages to which they relate –e.g. theory and modelling in support of JET work would fall under WPJET1, theory and modelling in support of JT-60SA would fall under WPSA. Physics model development related to the code development work of WPCD falls under that Work Package.“

”Achieving the Mission 1 and 2 goals requires significant development of existing modelling codes with a particular focus on integrated modelling. This work package addresses this issue through a set of code and workflow development sub-projects which together provide a suite of codes that can be validated on existing machines and used for ITER and DEMO predictions. The codes and workflows shall be robust, user friendly and be flexible enough to model existing and future machines. The sub-projects build on the large body of existing modelling codes and the infrastructure, toolset and codes developed under the EFDA ITM Taskforce. They include the combination of codes into integrated workflows and the optimisation of codes by, for example, speeding up their run time.”

• A “Review of Integrated Tokamak Modelling activities under EFDA” was held in 2011 , recommending the following broad actions, that have been taken into account by the WorkPlan implementation and by the Project structure and execution plan as it will be detailed in this PMP:Move to a more project oriented structure. The orientation should ideally be to the delivery of a complete workflow including the physics development work and the model validation on an experimental device. Innovation should be part of the motivations of such projects, up to validating or invalidating macrodescriptions of physics phenomena.
• Broaden the goal of the ITM activities under EFDA: the development of innovative physics modules for selected scientific purposes should become integral part of the EFDA ITM work.”