FinnFusion Annual Seminar 2024 gathered more than 80 experts to sunny Helsinki

Day 1 in Downtown Helsinki

The first day of the seminar (27 may) was held in the prestigious Main Building of University of Helsinki. Brief opening speeches were given by Juho Korteniemi, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, and Prof. Kai Nordlund, Vice Rector of University of Helsinki, whose research group has given a huge contribution to fusion materials research over the past 30 years and continues to do so.

In his opening speech, Tuomas Tala, Head of Research Unit and Research Professor at VTT, reviewed the milestones and the impressive growth of the Finnish R&D activities in fusion. The FinnFusion Consortium in its present form is now celebrating its 10-year anniversary. But the history of fusion research in Finland reaches already 50 years since the Ministry of Trade and Industry established the “Fusion Project” in autumn 1974 by an initiative of Pekka Jauho, Director General of VTT. The project employed just a couple of scientists, while today, almost 150 professionals are involved in the programme, which has become completely international. Participating organizations’ projects are strongly supported by the European Commission through EUROfusion, Business Finland, and the Research Council of Finland.

The sessions covered the Kumpula Advanced Computing Hub and machine learning; fusion reactor physics, and a selection from the very broad spectrum of fusion-related PhD projects currently ongoing in Finnish universities and VTT. In addition, students presented several posters before the first day was concluded on a seminar dinner. Invited talks were given by Prof. Mervi Mantsinen from Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Dr. Oliver Crofts from UKAEA. Fruitful exchange of ideas between research and industry participants was possible thanks to the presence of companies Comatec, CSC, Fulvisol, Luvata, Platom, and QuanScient.

EUROfusion is supporting Finnish fusion-related PhD education very significantly, and there are currently almost 40 students involved. Seminar presenters and session chair in a group photo.

The second day (28 May) took place on the Kumpula campus. The sessions featured fusion reactor safety, decommissioning, radioactive waste management and foresight, remote maintenance as well as fusion materials, The seminar was concluded with a tour to the UH Accelerator Laboratory.

Programme and presentations

Day 1

9:00-9:30 Registration

9:30-10:00 Session 1: Opening Words

Chair: Taina Kurki-Suonio

9:30 Juho Korteniemi, TEM: Opening words from the Ministry
9:40 Tuomas Tala, VTT: Opening words from FinnFusion
9:50 Kai Nordlund, UH: Opening words from University of Helsinki

10:00-10:30 Coffee Break

10:30-12:30 Session 2: Kumpula Advanced Computing Hub and Machine Learning

Chair: Fredric Granberg

10:30 Mervi Mantsinen, BSC, Spain: Advanced Computing Hubs within EUROfusion E-TASC programme
11:10 Rahul Nagaraja, QuanScient: A new FEM solver for plasma edge studies using Sparselizard C++ library
11:30 Jesper Byggmästar, UH: Machine-learned interatomic potential for atomistic simulations of fusion materials
11:50 Jan Åström, CSC: Code optimization of fusion simulation codes ̶ How to get old Fortran codes to run efficiently on modern hardware
12:10 Aaro Järvinen, VTT: Machine learning acceleration of fusion model validation

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:00 Session 3: Fusion Reactor Physics

Chair: Antti Hakola

13:30 Jari Likonen, VTT: Development of LIBS for JET
13:50 David Rees, Aalto: The impact of the main ion species on divertor plasma detachment in tokamaks
14:10 Antti Salmi, VTT: Intrinsic torque in TCV balanced NBI experiments
14:30 Antti Snicker, VTT: Design study for volumetric neutron source: fast ion confinement using ASCOT5 tools

15:00-15:30 Coffee Break

15:30-18:00 Session 4: FinnFusion Student Research Projects

Chair: Markus Airila

Link to all presentations of the session (expires on 7 December 2024)

15:30 Evgeniia Ponomareva, Aalto: Low-energy light ions electronic energy losses in tungsten
15:40 Faith Kporha, UH: Sputtering simulation of D-decorated tungsten surfaces by different ions
15:50 Dongyi Li, LUT: MPC control of Bionic Caterpillar-like Robot for the Blanket of CFETR remote maintenance
16:00 Andris Freimanis, VTT: Uncertainty in modelling EUROFER97 yield stress
16:10 Tommi Lyytinen, VTT: Neutronics modeling of MCF reactors using Serpent2 code
16:20 Ville Yli-Suutala, ÅA: GPU enabled interatomic potentials in LAMMPS with Kokkos
16:30 Roni Mäenpää, Aalto: Impact of nitrogen molecular breakup on divertor conditions in JET L-mode plasmas using SOLPS-ITER, EDGE2D-EIRENE and ERO2.0
16:40 Bruno Oliveira Cattelan, UH: AI applied to fusion, estimate for defect energies and runaway electrons

17:00-18:00 FinnFusion Student Research Projects in Poster Session

Day 2

9:00-10:00 Session 5: Fusion Reactor Safety, Environment, Licensing and Foresight

Chair: Kai Nordlund

9:00 Juuli Huuhanmäki, VTT: Future of Fusion – Delphi expert study
9:20 Vesa Laitinen, Platom: Decommissioning and waste recycling questions of DEMO – The Finnish perspective
9:40 Daniel Kaartinen, VTT: What should fusion learn from the nuclear waste management experiences in light-water reactors?

10:00-10:20 Coffee Break

10:20-12:30 Session 6: Remote Maintenance Activities in Finland

Chair: Karoliina Salminen

10:20 Oliver Crofts, UKAEA, United Kingdom: RACE and its input to DEMO including collaboration with TR0, RMTF and the interface with RMTP
10:50 Mikko Siuko, VTT: DTP2 activities for ITER
11:10 Stefan Mühlig-Hofmann, Comatec: Engineering design for DEMO
11:30 Huapeng Wu, LUT: Test rig of MPD for the limiter and other heavy components in DEMO
11:50 William Brace, VTT: Remote Maintenance Test Platform (RMTP) development and links to DEMO
12:10 Petri Surakka, Fulvisol: Aras PLM development for fusion applications: From Excel/Word chaos to Digital Thread