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Motivation: Plasma-facing materials in magnetically confined fusion power plants must reliably withstand extreme continuous plasma heat and particle fluxes.
Approach: Discovery of optimum plasma-facing materials to derisk fusion power plants is the mission of the Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX) under construction at ORNL. AI digital twins, trained on physics simulations and measurements, are being developed for automated control, target damage assessment and to guide discovery of optimum materials. (MPEX AI Digital Twins).
Impacts:
- Rapidly achieve plasma exposure power and duration goals
- AI-guided experiments and simulations to accelerate discovery of optimum materials
AI Advantage for MPEX
- Genesis Mission Platform for automated digital twin training and AI agents
- Control of coils and heating systems
- Fully equipped suite of simulation/analysis codes on day one of operations
- Reduce the time from construction to discovery science
S&T Challenge:
MPEX plays a critical role in addressing fusion exhaust and plasma-material interaction challenges identified in DOE's Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap.