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Fusion Energy Sciences
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Fusion Energy Sciences
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Intro || At a Glance ||
General Program Information ||
Applications
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Benefits || Participating
Universities || Practicum Sites || Contact Info
Each year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov) sponsors the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) Fellowship Program. The program is administered for DOE by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), (http://www.orau.gov/orise/edu/DOE/FES/fesfelhome.htm) operated by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). Fellowships are awarded for one-year renewable terms from September 1 through August 31 in support of full-time graduate study and thesis research within the United States. Study and research under the fellowship are to be conducted in the area of fusion energy sciences and technology related to the development of fusion energy. This booklet contains information and a student application for the Fusion Energy Sciences Fellowship Program.
The potential importance of fusion in national energy priorities underscores the necessity of ensuring an adequate supply of appropriately trained engineers and physicists to develop the scientific basis and technology leading toward commercially viable fusion energy systems. The basic objective of the FES Fellowship Program is to encourage talented students to enter a period of study and research in fusion energy sciences and technology accompanied by practical work experiences at recognized research facilities. The fellowship program is designed to provide incentive and encouragement to students with outstanding academic records and research interests to continue their study in graduate school in preparation for careers in fusion energy. Fellows are encouraged to accept career appointments with either DOE or DOE contractors.
The Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program leads the national research effort to advance plasma science, fusion science, and fusion technology – the knowledge base needed for an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source. Fusion offers the potential for abundant, safe, environmentally attractive, affordable energy.
The FES Fellowship Program has two separate components; these components are listed on the following pages. Applicants are required to indicate on their FES application which component they choose.
FUSION SCIENCE
The Science subprogram fosters fundamental research in plasma science aimed at a predictive understanding of plasmas in a broad range of plasma confinement configurations. There are two basic approaches to confining a fusion plasma and insulating it from its much colder surroundings—magnetic and inertial confinement. In the former, carefully engineered magnetic fields isolate the plasma from the walls of the surrounding vacuum chamber; while in the latter, a pellet of fusion fuel is compressed and heated so quickly that there is no time for the heat to escape. The Science subprogram supports exploratory research to combine the favorable features of, and the knowledge gained from, magnetic confinement, both for steady-state and pulsed approaches, in new, innovative fusion concepts. There has been great progress in plasma science during the past three decades, in both magnetic and inertial confinement, and today the world is at the threshold of a major advance in fusion energy development—the study of burning plasmas, in which the self-heating from fusion reactions dominates the plasma behavior. The Science subprogram provides the fundamental understanding of plasma science needed to address and resolve critical scientific issues related to fusion burning plasmas. The Science subprogram also explores and develops diagnostic techniques and innovative concepts that optimize and improve our approach to creating fusion burning plasmas, thereby seeking to minimize the programmatic risks and costs in the development of a fusion energy source. Finally, this subprogram provides training for graduate students and post docs, thus developing the national workforce needed to advance plasma and fusion science.
Fusion science shares many issues with plasma science. For Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) these include: (1) chaos, turbulence, and transport; (2) stability, magnetic reconnection, and dynamos; (3) wave-particle interaction and plasma heating; (4) sheaths and boundary layers; and (5) plasma-wall interactions. Progress in all of these fields is likely to be required for ultimate success in achieving a practical fusion energy source. For Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) the two major science issues are: (1) high energy density physics that describes plasma compression, intense laser-plasma, and beam-plasma interactions, and (2) non-neutral plasmas, as seen in the formation, transport, compression, and focusing of intense heavy ion beams.
The largest component of the Science subprogram is research that focuses on gaining a predictive understanding of the behavior of the high temperature, high-density plasmas typically required for fusion energy applications. The tokamak magnetic confinement concept has thus far been the most effective approach for confining plasmas with stellar temperatures within a laboratory environment. Many of the important issues in fusion science are being studied on the two major U.S. tokamak facilities, DIII-D at General Atomics and Alcator C-Mod at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to the advanced toroidal research on DIII-D and Alcator C-Mod, exploratory work is conducted in several smaller devices at universities and national laboratories.
The next largest research component is work on alternative concepts, aimed at extending fusion science and identifying concepts that may have favorable stability, transport or other characteristics that could improve the economic and environmental attractiveness of fusion energy sources. The largest element of the alternative concepts program is the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Exploratory research will also continue on more than a dozen small-scale, alternative concept devices and basic science experiments, focusing on the scientific topics for which each experiment is optimized. These include, but are not limited to, experiments on the reversed field pinch, the levitated dipole, the spheromak, the field reversed configuration, magnetized target fusion, centrifugally confined mirrors, flow-shear stabilization, plasma acceleration, and magnetic reconnection.
An entirely different set of science explorations is being carried out in the area of high energy density plasma physics, the underlying field for Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE). Efforts in IFE in OFES focus on understanding the physics of systems that will be needed to produce a viable inertial fusion energy source. These include heavy ion beam systems for heating and compressing a target pellet to fusion conditions, the experimental and theoretical scientific basis for modeling target chamber responses, and the physics of high-gain targets. Other thrust areas include the study of fast ignition, high Mach-number dense plasma jets, and ultrahigh magnetic field in dense plasmas.
The theory and modeling program provides the conceptual underpinning for the fusion sciences program. Theory efforts meet the challenge of describing complex non-linear plasma systems at the most fundamental level. These descriptions range from analytic theory to highly sophisticated computer simulation codes, both of which are used to analyze data from current experiments, guide future experiments, design future experimental devices, and assess projections of their performance.
The general plasma science program supports basic plasma science and engineering research and advances the discipline of plasma physics. Topics explored include a broad range of fundamental research efforts in wave-plasma physics, dusty plasmas, non-neutral plasmas, and boundary layer effects.
FUSION TECHNOLOGY
The technology subprogram develops the cutting edge technologies that enable current fusion research facilities to achieve their goals and explores innovations that are needed to create attractive visions of designs and technologies for future fusion experiments and energy systems. There are two major elements of this subprogram: Engineering Research and Materials Research.
The Engineering Research element is responsible for developing the enabling R&D for magnetic fusion energy systems for both the near term and longer term. The activities in this element focus on critical technology needs for enabling both current and planned U.S., as well as foreign, plasma experiments, to achieve their research goals and full performance potential, with emphasis on the following technologies: superconducting magnets, blankets, tritium, safety, plasma heating, fueling, and plasma facing components. The R&D effort on these technologies extends from evolutionary development advances in present day capabilities to research on next-generation technologies that will make it possible to enter new plasma experiment regimes with advanced plasma control capabilities.
For the longer-term, basic research is conducted on magnetic fusion chamber concepts for potentially attractive fusion energy systems and on critical issues of the technologies that will be needed in these concepts, such as heat removal, tritium breeding, control and processing, and safety. Another important activity is conceptual design of the most scientifically challenging systems for next-step fusion research facilities as well as future power plants. Also included are analysis and studies of critical scientific and technological issues, the results of which will provide guidance for optimizing future experimental approaches and for understanding the implications of fusion research on applications to fusion energy.
The Materials Research element focuses on the key science issues of materials for practical and environmentally attractive uses in magnetic fusion research facilities, and for the longer-term, fusion energy systems. This element continues to strengthen its modeling and theory activities, which makes it more effective at using and leveraging the substantial work on nanosystems and computational materials science begin funding elsewhere. This element also conducts irradiation testing of candidate fusion materials in the simulated fusion environments of fission reactors to provide data for validating and guiding the development of models for fusion materials.
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