Abstract: 

Modelling the behaviour of fusion reactor components, equipment, and installations represents a key challenge for the fusion industry. Component behaviour is very multi-physics in nature and simulation of the underlying physics relies on a range of highly specialized and poorly connected simulation tools.
A key simulation capability for fusion is the ability to perform co-simulation of tightly coupled physics, including coupling of software from different providers or simulation ecosystems. One example application of this is the simulation of the neutronic-thermal-structural behaviour of a breeder blanket. The breeding blanket plays critical roles in fusion reactors by absorbing high-energy neutrons to breed tritium from lithium, multiplying the neutron flux, converting neutron energy into thermal energy for electricity production, cooling internal reactor components directly facing the plasma, and shielding external reactor components from neutron and X-ray radiation.
This work considers an indicative breeder blanket module and operating scenario, for use in demonstrating coupled neutronic-thermal-structural simulation. The component is subjected to neutron bombardment from a fusion plasma source, which leads to a volumetric heating in the blanket module components. This thermal load is combined with a large heat flux at the blanket module surface facing the plasma and the convection cooling over internal surfaces bounding cooling channels. The interaction of materials with neutrons is temperature dependent, and the simulated temperature is therefore used to update the neutronics prediction. The raised temperature of the component results in thermal expansion and the structural response must be predicted to validate the design.
The proposed solution couples OpenMC, an open-source Monte Carlo neutron and photon simulation transport code, and Abaqus/Standard, in a two-way partitioned manner, using the SIMULIA Co-Simulation Services. The use of a co-simulation approach allows the reuse of well-established and high-performance simulation tools to solve the Neutronics-Thermal problem. The Thermal-Structural problems is solved sequentially by importing the temperature field from the thermal analysis into the structural simulation.
The developed solution enables a comprehensive assessment of neutronics performance (tritium breeding), thermal performance (heat generation and cooling), and structural behaviour (assembly tolerances and structural integrity), which are essential for the design of breeding blanket modules. This work demonstrates how efficiently third-party solvers can be couple to commercial solution using co-simulation. It further highlights the impact of advanced algorithms on the computation performance when solving strongly coupled problems.

Presenters: 

Eric Veron Industry Process Consultant - Dassault Systèmes Eric VERON joined Dassault Systèmes in 2017 as a Research Engineer and has since progressed to the role of Industry Process Consultant. Prior to this, he built extensive experience across several industrial organizations in the naval, energy, and space sectors. He brings over 15 years of expertise in simulation, with a focus on computational solid mechanics and co-simulation-driven multi-physics modeling. Eric holds both a Master of Science and a PhD in Applied Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering.