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ITER Research Visit, March - May 2015
Report by Toon Weyens. Powered by FuseNet

The prospect of nuclear fusion, a virtual limitless and inexhaustible source of energy, has been the holy grail in the science of energy generation since its discovery in the 1920's. Tremendous progress has been made both in the experimental milestones reached as well as in the theoretic understanding of the physics of a burning plasma: a violent and complicated process.

My own doctoral research is situated in the overlap of the realms of theoretical and computational physics with the main topic summarized as "3D ideal linear peeling ballooning theory in magnetic fusion devices". These modes have been studied extensively in the past, but almost exclusively in 2D (i.e. axisymmetric) situations. The extension to 3D, however, is very important and I spent the first year of my Ph.D. studying them from a theoretical perspective. After that I started working on a numerical code PB3D (Peeling Ballooning in 3D) to simulate the theory.

This is quite a challenging project, however, but it gets easier with some help from experts. Guido Huysmans and Alberto Loarte are two of them, working at the ITER Organization in Cadarache, France, which is why I have already spent four months there in total. During this time I have been able to finally obtain a code that is almost functioning.

But apart from the technical stuff, it is also incredibly enriching to work in such a challenging and motivating environment such as is the ITER Organization and I am very grateful to be given this opportunity. I will go back for two more months, as part of my FUSION DC programme for sure.