Experimental fusion reactor controlled by GPU. Credit: University of Washington.
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Fusion energy is an increasingly sought-after target for the massive efforts of a number of research teams, engineers, government agencies and private companies. Every day we see the Sun in the sky, burning with fusion reactions and flooding the surrounding universe with tremendous energy. However, the use of fusion is not so easy, and so far we have a feeling that the natural fusion reactor of the Solar System is rather laughing in our eyes.
Kyle Morgan.
Kredit: University of Washington.
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One of the major obstacles that fusion scientists have to deal with in the development of fusion energy is the turbulent nature of plasma, which we must tame in order to make meaningful use of fusion energy. This requires intensive research, simulations and experiments that are extremely computationally intensive.
Experts from the American University of Washington decided to incorporate proven hardware into the fusion experiments, which gave the world the gaming industry. The insatiable desire of countless millions of computer gamers for an increasingly enchanting experience has forced electronics manufacturers to develop highly efficient and powerful graphics cards (GPUs). Gradually, they proved to be so good that it is possible to use their services in many other branches of human activities. Among other things, they are used in top research, which has now been reflected in the development of fusion devices.
As Chris Hansen of the University of Washington said, the dynamics of plasma in fusion experiments are insane and evolving rapidly. If the fusion device did not keep up with it, the fusion reaction could turn out very badly. Most applications used today assume that the fusion system is quite static. Hansen et al. they are developing methods to keep plasma on the chain, while taking into account its extremely dynamic nature.
Logo. Kredit: University of Washington.
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He and his colleagues built an experimental fusion reactor that creates magnetic fields inside the plasma. The advantage of this approach is that such a reactor should be smaller and cheaper compared to fusion reactors that use external magnetic fields. The internal magnetic fields allow you to effectively control the plasma.
The prototype fusion reactor of the University of Washington team reaches plasma temperatures of around 1 million ° C. That’s much less than the 150 million ° C needed to trigger a fusion reaction, but it’s enough for scientists to develop and test new technologies. Three injectors work in their reactor, creating a donut-shaped plasma cloud. Plasma is retained for only a few thousandths of a second, during which researchers must monitor plasma and collect data.
In the past, they used slow and not very user-friendly technologies to control the reactor. Then they decided to use NVIDIA Tesla GPU cards, which were designed for machine learning applications. According to research leader Kyle Morgan, this has given them tremendous and user-friendly computing power. Thanks to graphics cards, they can test new advanced algorithms for plasma control. The GPUs seem to have found their way into fusion energy.
Literature
University of Washington 22. 7. 2021.
Review of Scientific Instruments 92: 053530.
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