Geometry and Meshing Technologies to Support Fusion Energy System Simulations

As efforts on the development of commercial fusion energy systems move forward, there is a need to harden a range of advanced fusion physics modeling capabilities and combine them with a full range of computer aided design and computer aided engineering tools to provide the whole facility modeling capabilities needed to design commercial fusion energy systems. Since many of the required fusion physics simulation codes are research level codes, with specific geometry definition and mesh generation requirements, the current best in class simulation automation technologies must be extended to satisfy those requirements, integrate them with computer aided engineering codes and support the development of fusion energy digital twins. This SBIR is focused on the advancement of simulation automation technologies to increase the reliability and ease of application of fusion physics simulation codes. Developments will focus on improving the automation and reliability of tools that are necessary to process the geometry and meshes which are required to perform the complex, coupled simulations that are required to simulate a fusion energy system. This work will be coordinated with the needs of the government and commercial organizations which are using these tools. The Phase I work provided a number of geometry and meshing technology advances needed to more effectively address fusion physics simulations and demonstrated their application in RF modeling and global impurity transport simulations. The Phase II project will extend this work focusing on i) automatic mesh generation, including higher-order meshes, on the complex geometries used in these simulations, ii) mesh and geometry updates to support design optimization, iii) capabilities for coupling multiple analysis codes for multi-physics simulations. The capabilities developed will be integrated with and demonstrated on real-world fusion system simulation workflows. The technologies developed in this project will be of general applicability, providing benefits for many government, laboratory, and industrial applications. The emphasis on hardening advanced simulations workflows critical to the commercial fusion energy companies will help them advance their goal of delivering fusion energy to the electric grid as quickly as possible. In addition, providing new geometry, meshing and code coupling techniques as needed to support new classes of physics modeling will be of direct benefit to other industries including aerospace, automotive, advanced electronics, etc.