“We want to develop a system simulation, which is what we've been building in Ansys Twin Builder. And the reason we've chosen this software is its flexible fidelity. You can analyze simpler components like equations, up to coupling with full physics codes. It's modular, enabling us to split a model down into its different components, and then, if those need updating, we can quickly swap them in and out. And it's fast so that we're able to do as many probabilistic simulations and design studies as we want as we work toward a real-time digital twin.”

— Michelle Tindall
Engineering Analyst, Simulation Research, U.K. Atomic Energy Authority

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Uses Ansys Twin Builder to Model Fusion for Clean Energy Production

The United Kingdom (UK) invests 650 million pounds (792 million dollars) to help cement the UK as a world leader in the fusion sector, creating thousands of fusion training places. Alongside this, UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) is building a unique test rig called CHIMERA (Combined Heating and Magnetic Research Apparatus). The test rig is specifically designed to test meter scale prototype components in an environment representative of a fusion power plant.

Challenges

Within the tokamak (tordial chamber with magnetic coils) of a fusion reactor, hydrogen fuel is subject to extreme pressure and temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees Celsius to create extremely hot, electrically charged plasma. Future operational success requires an understanding of how all the components that sit next to the plasma within the tokamak will survive high loads imposed by electromagnetic fields, high heat flux, and temperature variations due to coolant loop flow. In light of prohibitive timescales and costs, fully replicating the operational environment is only possible with prototype fusion reactors. Further, complications posed by in-operation diagnostics, in-service inspections, and potential in-vessel failures establish the need for predictive maintenance based on in situ monitoring that is independent of more traditional instrumentation and data collection.

Comparison of tested and simulated post damage

Benefits

• Creating a multidomain co-simulation/connection of 1D elements, developing reduced-order models, and utilizing standard languages and exchange formats (FMI) resulted in fast-running multiphysics that will support probabilistic simulation design studies and real-time predictive maintenance via digital twin.
• Performing a static electromagnetic analysis in Ansys Maxwell, for example, to calculate the net forces experienced by the ferromagnetic components due to a static magnetic field generated by super-conducting magnets yielded results within a maximum absolute error of 700 N and a percentage error of 3%.
• Using CHIMERA-driven simulations enables researchers to optimize their design of experiments (DOEs) to build confidence and capability in simulation models through calibration to test.
• Initial systems simulation results of CHIMERA commissioning sample under test (CSUT) indicate that the simulation speed, accuracy, and complexity of the methodology used will achieve the fast-running validated component models needed for a fusion component digital twin.

Thanks to the system simulation UKAEA can simulate many components such as this example where simulation shows the temperature variation across front slats due to mass flow. Parameter sweeps were completed to understand the test envelope.