UCLA-Led Team Receives DOE Grant to Simulate Materials for Fusion Reactors

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a four-year, $12 million grant to a multi-institutional team led by UCLA researchers to simulate the long-term performance of materials in future fusion reactors. 

“Interest in fusion energy has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years, both in the public and private sectors, thanks to a series of transformative advances in the fields of high-energy density physics, materials science and reactor engineering and technology,” said project leader Jaime Marian, a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “However, important scientific questions still remain to be addressed, among which several are related to the interaction of plasma ions and neutrons with reactor materials and their evolution with time.”

Supported by the DOE offices of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) and Advanced Strategic Computational Research, the project is designed to harness the power of the department’s exascale-class supercomputers for understanding the fusion processes and to simulate materials behavior in realistic fusion reactor conditions. 

“Interest in fusion energy has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years, both in the public and private sectors, thanks to a series of transformative advances in the fields of high-energy density physics, materials science and reactor engineering and technology,” said Jaime Marian.

Comprising members from five universities and four national labs, the research teams brings together computer and materials scientists, as well as applied mathematicians. In addition to researchers from UCLA, other participants are from Stony Brook University in New York, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Villanova University in Pennsylvania, University of Miami, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Idaho National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington.

The UCLA-led study is one of 12 computational research projects totaling $112 million in funding selected via competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing – FES Partnerships.