ITER Operation Research Articles

Integration of MoS2 Memtransistor Devices and Analogue Circuits for Sensor Fusion in Autonomous Vehicle Target Localization.

In contemporary autonomous driving systems relying on sensor fusion, traditional digital processors encounter challenges associated with analogue-to-digital conversion and iterative vector-matrix operations, which are encumbered by limitations in terms of response time and energy consumption. In this study, we present an analogue Kalman filter circuit based on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) memtransistor, designed to accelerate sensor fusion for precise localization in autonomous vehicle applications. The nonvolatile memory characteristics of the memtransistor allow for the storage of a fixed Kalman gain, which eliminates the data convergence and thus accelerates the processing speeds. Additionally, the modulation of multiple conductance states by the gate terminal enables fast adaptability to diverse autonomous driving scenarios by tuning multiple Kalman filter gains. Our proposed analogue Kalman filter circuit accurately estimates the position coordinates of target vehicles by fusing sensor data from light detection and ranging (LiDAR), millimeter-wave radar (Radar), and camera, and it successfully solves real-word problems in a signal-free crossroad intersection. Notably, our system achieves a 1000-fold improvement in energy efficiency compared to that of digital circuits. This work underscores the viability of a memtransistor for achieving fast, energy-efficient real-time sensing, and continuous signal processing in advanced sensor fusion technology.

Impact of neutron irradiation on the tensile properties of advanced EUROFER97-type steels

Tensile properties (strength and ductility) of three different experimental EUROFER97 variants and two standard EUROFER97 products were investigated before and after neutron irradiation performed in the temperature range 275–300 °C up to ∼3 dpa, i.e a damage dose comparable to the end-of-life of ITER operation. The grades with the chemical compositions within and outside the specifications of EUROFER97 steel followed alternative thermo-mechanical treatments (TMT) as compared to the reference EUROFER97. Mechanical properties were assessed with hardness and tensile tests, while fracture surface was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Post irradiation examination was conducted to evaluate the hardening behavior, change in ductility and fracture surface after irradiation. Furthermore, Ductile-to-Brittle Transition Temperature (DBTT) shift due to neutron irradiation was estimated based on the correlation formerly established for EUROFER97 at the studied irradiation temperature.

First SOLPS‐ITER simulations of ASDEX Upgrade partially detached H‐mode with boron impurity: The missing radiation at the outer strike‐point region

AbstractPartially detached H‐modes are the baseline regime for the future ITER operation. The ASDEX Upgrade partially detached H‐mode is modeled using the SOLPS‐ITER code with drifts enabled and compared with experimental data. For the first time, boron (B) impurity is simulated in the Scrape‐off layer (SOL) and divertor. A comparison between divertor diagnostics and discrepancies between Langmuir probe and Divertor Thomson scattering/Stark broadening diagnostic are discussed. In the modeling, experimental target profiles are reproduced if the experimental level of radiation in the SOL and divertor is achieved using nitrogen (N) impurity seeding. Bolometry measurements detect substantial radiation from the partially detached outer strike point. With B radiation, this maximum in bolometry data is reproduced in the modeling, which is not possible with N alone.

Error field detection and correction studies towards ITER operation

In magnetic fusion devices, error field (EF) sources, spurious magnetic field perturbations, need to be identified and corrected for safe and stable (disruption-free) tokamak operation. Within Work Package Tokamak Exploitation RT04, a series of studies have been carried out to test the portability of the novel non-disruptive method, designed and tested in DIII-D (Paz-Soldan et al 2022 Nucl. Fusion 62 126007), and to perform an assessment of model-based EF control strategies towards their applicability in ITER. In this paper, the lessons learned, the physical mechanism behind the magnetic island healing, which relies on enhanced viscous torque that acts against the static electro-magnetic torque, and the main control achievements are reported, together with the first design of the asynchronous EF correction current/density controller for ITER.

Microstructural changes induced in advanced tungsten grades under high temperature neutron irradiation

Recent studies addressing the change of mechanical properties after high temperature irradiation of tungsten have reported substantial increase of the ductile to brittle transition temperature as well as increase of the hardness. In this work, we performed microstructural analysis by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on various tungsten grades earlier exposed to high temperature neutron irradiation at 1200 °C up to 1 dpa. The latter corresponds to the expected irradiation temperature on the surface of a tungsten monoblock during the steady state operation in ITER. TEM was applied to five tungsten (W) materials including ITER specification pure W and precipitate strengthened W alloys. The analysis of TEM data coupled with its discussion led to a number of important conclusions regarding the damage induced at 1200 °C neutron irradiation such as: (i) weak effect of recrystallization on the accumulation of the lattice damage; (ii) promising results on the tolerance of damage accumulation in W-Y2O3 grade and (iii) internal oxidation of TiC particles which may contribute to the huge increase of the irradiation induced hardening.

An adaptive Morlet wavelet-based iterative filtering method for locating informative frequency band

Locating the informative frequency band of rolling bearing fault signals is of great significance for feature extraction and fault diagnosis. Benefiting from the adjustable center frequency and bandwidth as well as the similarity to impulse-like characteristics induced by bearing failures, Morlet wavelets are commonly used in resonance demodulation. However, fault impulses are highly susceptible to contamination by strong noise, which impedes the efficacy of existing wavelet parameter selection strategies and frequency band optimization methods. In this paper, an adaptive Morlet wavelet-based iterative filtering (AMIF) method is proposed for frequency band optimization under strong noise. The resonance frequency band is pinpointed based on adaptive Morlet wavelet filter banks, with off-band noise being canceled and fault features being refined during the level-by-level filtering process. Additional iterative operations are leveraged to enhance fault features of in-band signals to facilitate the optimization of the filtering parameters. Effectiveness of the proposed AMIF method and its superiority over the wavelet packet transform-based kurtogram and minimum entropy deconvolution are verified through simulation and experimental analysis. The results demonstrate that AMIF can accurately localize the informative frequency band, thereby extracting high-quality fault features, making it suitable for bearing fault diagnosis under strong noise condition with different fault types.

Prediction of pellet mass thresholds for ELM triggering in low-collisionality, ITER-like discharges

In ITER, pellets are calculated to require more than 8 times the mass than currently planned to reliably trigger edge-localized modes (ELMs). Unmitigated heat flux impulses from ELMs are intolerable in ITER at full power and current. Therefore, ITER operation relies on multiple approaches to control ELM heat fluxes. One method is pellet ELM pacing to instigate small rapid ELMs with low heat flux. Predicting the performance of pellet pacing is critical for ITER, which is expected to operate in a regime with a low-collisionality, peeling-limited pedestal. However, to trigger ELMs the local pressure increase in the expanding pellet cloud pushes the equilibrium over the ballooning stability limit. In this work, linear and nonlinear M3D-C1 simulations are used to predict pellet mass thresholds in DIII-D discharges and ITER scenarios with peeling-limited pedestals. It is found that the distance of the equilibrium’s operational point from the ballooning branch of the pedestal stability boundary strongly changes thresholds. Linear M3D-C1 simulations find a strong dependence of the pellet mass threshold on the poloidal injection location for ITER’s 15 MA, Q = 10 scenario. The required pellet mass at the planned injection locations is 8 to 17 times larger than currently considered. However, such linear simulations do not include pellet ablation physics or time evolution of density and temperature. A new scheme of 2D nonlinear simulations, coupled with linear stability analysis at various steps throughout the nonlinear time evolution, was developed to include such physics and improve on the linear results. These new nonlinear-to-linear simulations confirm previous findings. This result suggests that pellet ELM triggering in ITER could require pellets much larger than those currently planned, which makes ELM-pacing operationally challenging. On the other hand, fueling pellets injected from the high-field side will likely not unintentionally trigger ELMs in an otherwise ELM-stable plasma.

Insights from applications of the RSTM tool for coupled CFD-activation fluid simulation

Accurate prediction of the activation of fluids flowing under irradiation is important for the timely development of fusion technology. One of the major current issues is the cooling water of ITER, which becomes activated by plasma neutrons during nuclear operations, thus raising a number of radiological implications such as radiation effects on sensitive equipment, compliance with radiological protection zoning, and compliance with radioactivity limits in regulations of pressure equipment and effluents. Further significant applications are the activation of other service fluids in ITER and of the LiPb in both ITER and DEMO breeding blanket modules.To avoid systematic uncertainties, simulation of the activation of fluids flowing in arbitrarily complex 3D geometry, flow regimes and neutron fields requires full coupling of activation with fluid-dynamics physics models. No such tools were available until recently: the Radio-Species Transport Model (RSTM), based on the well-established ANSYS Fluent® UDS methodology, is one conceived and developed at F4E. Here we review the methodology and capabilities of the RSTM, as well as earlier development, validation, benchmarking and application activities. We then report currently ongoing further applications and benchmarking being performed in collaboration with specific tasks of the EUROFusion programme Preparation for ITER Operation. Computations, results and comparison with other methodologies for several cases of interest are presented and discussed.

High-order iterative rearrangement transform for time–frequency characterization of bearing fault impact

Time–frequency analysis (TFA) can effectively characterize features of non-stationary signals. Traditional TFA algorithms construct signal models in the time domain and make the assumption that the instantaneous characteristics of each component are continuous. However, the instantaneous frequency (IF) of the transient signal is discontinuous in the time domain and exhibits a multifaceted relationship with time, such as shock, vibration wave, damped sound wave, etc. Additionally, in most existing TFA methods, low-order group delay (GD) is used to describe transient signals, which leads to unsatisfactory energy concentration and calculation accuracy. To address about issues, a novel TFA technique, termed high-order iterative rearrangement transform (HOIRT), is developed in this research. First, the signal model is defined within the frequency domain, and the frequency ridge of the transient signal is described by a high-order GD (HOGD), which is similar to the IF. Second, a HOGD-based iterative synchrosqueezing operator is defined to reassign time–frequency coefficients into the GD trajectories along the time direction. Finally, the HOGD-based frequency extraction operator is constructed to only retain the target time–frequency information of the transient signal from the rearranged results, such that the noise interference is eliminated and the energy-concentrated TFR is obtained. A simulation signal with nonlinear GDs is employed to illustrate the effectiveness of the HOIRT. Compared with the other seven typical TFA algorithms, the developed technique has the smallest calculation error and Rényi entropy, showing that the HOIRT has the highest accuracy and energy concentration. Analysis result of the bearing fault impact signal shows that the proposed HOIRT can display the time when pulses occur while ensuring high time–frequency resolution, making it suitable for detecting bearing faults.

Laser and microwave instrumentation for ITER and future reactors

ITER diagnostics include an extensive set oflaser and microwave diagnostics to give access to a wealth of information on thecore and edge plasma and to support high performance operation of ITER. Forexample, Core and Edge Thomson scattering systems build detailed density andtemperature profiles on time scales much faster than τ E to follow transientevents; ECE and reflectometry add time resolution to follow MHDevents. Implementing these diagnostics is challenging, needing a panoply oftechnologies to keep them functioning reliably for thousands of hours despiteextreme events such as disruptions and wall conditioning cycles. Shielding,shutters and cleaning systems protect the forward elements of most opticalsystems from the build-up of deposits and damage. Still, plasma-facing mirrorsmust survive laser loads and endure erosion, deposition and in-situ RFcleaning. Calibration and monitoring systems ensure accurate and drift-freeoperation. These support systems are also not straightforward and requiredspecific R&D. Access also drives the design: to deal with the neutronand gamma sources yet allow maintenance of activated components, ITER useslarge, multi-purpose ports that couple otherwise distinct systems into modulesfor maintenance. Machine movement requires provisions to maintain alignment andcalibration, from these port plugs, shown in figure 1, to theaccessible areas 10–50 m away. A final complication comes from the difficulty ofemploying electronics near the plugs. Extensive qualification for radiationresistance is needed. This paper examines design adaptations that ITER adoptedfor its near-reactor environment, consider the lessons learnt from the ITERdesign activity specifically for laser and microwave systems and lays out somepossible evolution paths for the reactor diagnostician that must follow a moreindustrial approach.

Combustion Characteristics of a Hydrogen-Fueled TJI Engine under Knocking Conditions

The use of a two-stage combustion system in a hydrogen-fueled engine is characteristic of modern internal combustion engines. The main problem with hydrogen combustion in such systems is knocking combustion. This paper contains the results of research under knock combustion conditions with a single-cylinder internal combustion engine equipped with a turbulent jet ignition system (TJI). A layout with a passive pre-chamber and a variable value of the excess air ratio range λ = 1.25–2.0 with a constant value of the center of combustion (CoC = 4 deg) after top dead center (TDC) was used. Two indicators of knock combustion were analyzed: maximum oscillation of pressure and the Mahle Knock Index. Analyses were also carried out taking into account the rate of heat release and the amount of heat released. As a result of the investigation, it was found that knock combustion occurs intensively at small values of the air excess ratio. Hydrogen knock combustion disappears for λ = 2.0 and greater. The pressure oscillation index was found to be more applicable, as its limiting value (>1 bar) allows easy diagnosis of knock combustion. The Mahle Knock Index is a quantity that allows interval analysis of the knock. The choice of classes and weighting coefficients requires an iterative operation, as they strictly depend on engine characteristics, load, and knock magnitude.

High-parameters experimental linear plasma device for fusion wall conditioning studies

In future, HELPD would provide valuable platform for investigating the issue in the W impurity control, towards the wall conditioning requirements in tokamak.The tungsten (W) impurity caused by sputtering of the first wall is considered as an issue influencing the plasma safe operation of EAST, ITER and other future fusion devices. As a supplement to the experiments on the tokamak, the linear plasma device (LPD) serves as an effective divertor simulator for the W impurity control research. This work presents the design and construction of High-parameters Experimental Linear Plasma Device (HELPD) in detail, including its layout and operation parameters. Besides the function of plasma exposure, the target sample could be exchanged in a separate material pretreatment vessel for wall conditioning, such as lithium coating and glow discharge cleaning (GDC) without breaking vacuum conditions. And the preliminary results show that the device could produce a steady state plasma of 1∼10 eV, and its flux could reach 1022 m−2s−1 with 10 kW helicon wave. In the future, HELPD would provide valuable platform for investigating the issue in the W impurity control，towards the wall conditioning requirements in tokamak.

A hybrid algorithm based on TDOA and DOA for underwater target localization

To address the problems of complex scenarios, low accuracy of a single localization algorithm, and high requirements for localization system equipment, this paper proposes a Taylor-weighted least squares algorithm based on Time Differences of Arrival (TDOA) and Direction of Arrival (DOA) joint localization method. The method first performs DOA estimation of the target by the Bayesian algorithm with off-grid sparse reconstruction and converts the obtained orientation information into position coordinates, and finds the final position of the target through iterative operations. The proposed algorithm is compared with the existing TDOA method based on the Chan algorithm and the Taylor algorithm based on the TDOA with the Chan algorithm as the initial value and the Two-Step Weighted Least Squares (TSWLS) algorithm in a simulation environment. The results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of localization accuracy, noise immunity, stability and is suitable for target localization in underwater.

Novel Lax pair and many conservation laws to a [formula omitted]-dimensional generalized combined Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff-type equation in biohydrodynamics

Under investigation in this paper is a (2+1)-dimensional generalized combined Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff-type equation for certain nonlinear phenomena in biohydrodynamics, fluids and plasmas. A novel differential form Lax pair with certain conditions is constructed with an arbitrary function H(y,t), while an iterative operator different from those in the existing literatures is derived and fully verified to satisfy the above Lax pair. Based on the iterative operator, n-fold DT and gDT are derived to obtain the higher-order solutions with n being a positive integer. The nth-order solutions are influenced by the form of H(y,t) in the Lax pair, such as the dark solitons with H(y,t) being a log function whereas the bright solitons with H(y,t) being a completely quadratic function. Additionally, the solution’s format may be impacted by the alteration in the Lax pair’s form caused by H(y,t)=0 under specific circumstances. Two types of the many conservation laws are generated separately by discovering two identity relations, which are independent of the form of H(y,t). It is beneficial in providing a range of physical information for subsequent studies, such as modeling of neural network models for certain fluids as described in this equation.

A novel IQ mismatch compensation method in wideband direct-conversion receivers.

Direct-conversion receivers (DCRs) have been widely used in recent years due to their small size and low power consumption. However, the mismatch between the in-phase (I) and the quadrature (Q) branches will seriously affect the performance of the DCRs. This paper proposes a novel blind compensation method to suppress the interference introduced by IQ mismatch. Based on the Hilbert transform, our proposed method can obtain the orthogonal signal of the I-channel signal by utilizing the Weaver architecture. Compared with traditional compensation methods, the main difference of the proposed method is that it ignores prior information, training sequences, and additional hardware circuits. Furthermore, the complexity of the proposed blind compensation method is low because no iterative operations are involved in the compensation process. The simulation results show that the proposed method has an excellent compensation performance, especially in wideband applications.

Effect of 2/1 tearing mode on radiation asymmetry during disruptions on J-TEXT

Plasma disruption in the tokamak is a huge threat to the safe operation of ITER, which will cause serious damage to the tokamak device. At present, massive impurity injection is the main disruption mitigation method, include massive gas injection (MGI) and shattered pellet injection (SPI) which can dissipate most of the internal thermal energy via radiation. However, radiation asymmetry will still cause damage to the device when it results the concentration of radiation in a small area. It has been observed on many devices that n = 1 mode has a strong influence on radiation asymmetry. In this paper, the experimental results of radiation asymmetry on J-TEXT tokamak have been introduced, and there is a close to sine function relationship between toroidal peaking factor (TPF) and the phase of 2/1 tearing mode. It is found that when the injection position is aligned with the X-point of the pre-existing magnetic island, TPF has the maximum value, and while the injection position is between the X-point and the O-point, TPF has the minimum value. This will be helpful for the study of disruption mitigation of future large devices.

Mathematical modeling and analysis of the tailor rolled blank manufacturing process

A tailor rolled blank (TRB) is a plate of continuously varying thickness with the advantages of lightweight, high strength, and good surface quality. However, it is required that the roll gap can be adjusted online, and the plate and roll produce large elastic deformation in the TRB manufacturing process. These characteristics make the modeling of the force and deformation parameters more difficult. A new mathematical model of roll separating force in the TRB manufacturing process is established taking into account the feature of deformation in this research. The elastic deformation of the strip and the flattening deformation of the roll are considered in order to improve the prediction accuracy of the results. The roll separating forces of the entrance elastic compression region and the exit elastic recovery region are computed using the generalized Hooke's law. A new velocity field is proposed based on the deformation characteristics of the plastic region and velocity boundary conditions, and the power functionals of the internal deformation, shear, friction, and tension are calculated. The analytical models of force and deformation parameters combined the elastic and plastic deformation regions are obtained through iterative operation, which satisfies the convergence condition of the roll separating force and roll flattening. The roll separating force data obtained by the model in this research are compared with the actual measured values in the laboratory, and the deviation value is small, which proves the computational precision of the present model. Additionally, the variations of the entrance velocity and flow volume per second during the TRB manufacturing process are shown, and the influences of the tension and friction factor on the neutral angle and roll separating force are illustrated.

Real‐World Image Deraining Using Model‐Free Unsupervised Learning

We propose a novel model‐free unsupervised learning paradigm to tackle the unfavorable prevailing problem of real‐world image deraining, dubbed MUL‐Derain. Beyond existing unsupervised deraining efforts, MUL‐Derain leverages a model‐free Multiscale Attentive Filtering (MSAF) to handle multiscale rain streaks. Therefore, formulation of any rain imaging is not necessary, and it requires neither iterative optimization nor progressive refinement operations. Meanwhile, MUL‐Derain can efficiently compute spatial coherence and global interactions by modeling long‐range dependencies, allowing MSAF to learn useful knowledge from a larger or even global rain region. Furthermore, we formulate a novel multiloss function to constrain MUL‐Derain to preserve both color and structure information from the rainy images. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real‐world datasets demonstrate that our MUL‐Derain obtains state‐of‐the‐art performance over un/semisupervised methods and exhibits competitive advantages over the fully‐supervised ones.

An adaptive cepstrum feature representation method with variable frame length and variable filter banks for acoustic emission signals

Acoustic emission technology is widely employed in defect detection, structural health monitoring, fault diagnosis, and other applications due to its benefits of non-contact, real-time, sensitivity, and flexibility. To implement efficient and timely intelligent monitoring, it is crucial to promptly and precisely gather the time-varying properties in the non-stationary acoustic emission signals. The current work proposes an adaptive cepstrum feature representation method that combines variable frame length and variable filter bank. The variable frame length is implemented based on the spectral distribution correlation, and the optimal frame length and frame rate are selected by iterative operations. The variable filter bank, on the other hand, characterizes the local measure features of variable frame length signals by setting dynamic weight distributions. The proposed adaptive cepstrum algorithm can be used as an auxiliary tool to initially analyze complex non-stationary signals, and thus effectively identify the time-varying and frequency components in acoustic emission signals. The superiority of the proposed method has been confirmed on simulation data. Furthermore, the practical performance of the proposed method is evaluated and illustrated based on the burst signal from laser shock peening processing and the mixed signal from pipeline leakage. The proposed method can be extended to other broadband signals and can be used for feature pre-processing before deep learning network modeling to improve recognition accuracy due to its high time–frequency resolution.

Exploration of ITER operational space with as-built stiffness of central solenoid modules

The as-built stiffness in the ITER central solenoid (CS) modules (CSM1 thorough to CSM4 are currently manufactured) determines the range of vertical compression forces that can be tolerated by the CS modules during ITER operation. Since the as-built stiffness of the CS modules manufactured (∼32 GPa and ∼34 GPa for CSM1 and CSM2, respectively and similar for the other modules) has been reduced from the design value (53 GPa), the CS axial (vertical) force criteria have been updated assuming a conservative stiffness (25 GPa) with margins for all six CS modules. Initial analysis using the updated CS force criteria has revealed that this reduction affects only the plasma initiation with fully charged CS in the ITER 15 MA Baseline DT scenario, resulting in a slight reduction of poloidal magnetic flux, from 117.5 Wb to 116.2 Wb at initial CS magnetization. Therefore, the 15 MA Baseline scenario has been re-developed with an updated plasma start-up, and then the entire evolution of the CS and poloidal field coil parameters has been validated against all the coil currents, fields and forces criteria. To explore potential risks and opportunities for further optimization of scenarios, the equilibrium operational space (the plasma internal inductance versus the poloidal magnetic flux produced by the coils) at flat-top burn has been analyzed using the CORSICA and DINA codes. The three major ITER reference DT operation scenarios, 15 MA Q = 10 Baseline, 12.5 MA Q > 5 Hybrid and 10 MA Q ∼ 5 Steady-State, satisfy all the coil criteria including the CS force updated reflecting the as-built stiffness. The evolution of the plasma discharge parameters within the equilibrium operational spaces provided a guidance for potential optimization with margins.