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| | Worcester Polytechnic Institute | Sneha Prabha Narra | |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Metal Additive Manufacturing
Process Design
Fabrication using laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing
Characterization - LOM, SEM, and XRD |
| MA |
| | University of California, Davis | Neville C. Luhmann, Jr. | |
Academic
|
Power Generation and Energy Production: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels/Nuclear
| The UC Davis Microwave/Millimeter Wave and Plasma Diagnostic Group (https://sites.google.com/view/mmwave/home?authuser=0), founded by Prof. Neville. C. Luhmann, Jr., is part of the Davis Millimeter-Wave Research Center (DMRC). The thrust of the UC Davis Microwave/Millimeter Wave and Plasma Diagnostic Group (MMWPDG) is the development of advanced millimeter-wave plasma diagnostic instruments and techniques on relevant magnetic fusion devices, and obtaining important physics results with these diagnostics. A further important mission is the training of the next generation of plasma physicists and engineers. In this regard, UCD is extremely fortunate to have available perhaps the most extensive microwave, millimeter-wave, and submillimeter-wave equipment collection available anywhere, and has been designated a Center of Excellence in high power microwave/millimeter-wave sources. Further capabilities are provided by extensive collaborations with fusion researchers and millimeter-wave technology researchers worldwide.
The research areas include, but are not limited to):
• Millimeter-wave systems
o Radars, imaging, sensors, and communications
• RF/microwave/millimeter components and packaging
o Integrated passive devices and antennas
o MEMS
• RF/microwave/millimeter integrated circuits and modeling
o MMW/THz Si CMOS and systems
o GaAs and GaN integrated circuit design
• THz micro-fabricated vacuum electronics
o Nano-machining, fabrication, devices and materials
As an example of a GAMOW relevant capability, we are involved in the development of a variety of nano-fabricated vacuum electron beam devices in the 100 GHz to 1 THz which cover the parameter region of interest for divertor reflectometry (originally planned for ITER but not pursued because of the perception that source technology would not support it). As an example, we are currently collaborating with Bridge12 on the development of a 693 GHz TWT. |
| CA |
| | Bridge 12 Technologies, Inc. | Jagadishwar R. Sirigiri | |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| Bridge12 Technologies, Inc. develops high power microwave, millimeter wave and terahertz sources and systems and RF accelerators for application in scientific research, radiation therapy, homeland security, communication systems and defense. The company was founded in 2009 by former MIT scientists and is one of a handful of companies in the world that produce high power, high frequency gyrotrons. The founder of Bridge12 has over two decades of experience in the research and development megawatt class gyrotrons for plasma heating and current drive and high-power low loss corrugated transmission line systems, high field electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometers. In the past few years, we have developed and sold a range of terahertz gyrotrons for Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) enhanced Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, 90 kW continuous wave, W-Band gyrotrons for military applications and sophisticated corrugated waveguide transmission line systems at frequencies as high as 460 GHz. Currently, we are developing a 693 GHz gyrotron for use in high-k scattering spectrometer to characterize microturbulence in magnetically confined fusion machines and a 693 GHz Traveling Wave Tube amplifier for application in plasma diagnostics. We are also developing a 1.6 MeV Proton Injector with an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) plasma source as an injector to a synchrotron for proton therapy applications. We are now focusing on the development of high power terahertz gyrotrons for high field tokamaks and plasma diagnostics systems for deployment in commercial burning plasma machines.
The Bridge12 team has extensive experience in simulation and modeling of microwave sources, transmission lines and other plasma systems. Bridge12 is fully equipped for design, manufacturing, assembly, processing and testing of high power gyrotrons in our own facilities.
We have extensive collaborations with universities like George Washington University, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California, Davis, Yale University and Stanford University. We have successfully executed projects for the US Department of Energy, US Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. |
| MA |
| | Hyper Tech Research Inc. | Michael Tomsic | |
Small Business
|
Other Energy Technologies
| For Fusion, low cost, very high Jc and Je Nb3Sn low AC loss wires and cables, and developing new high Je REBCO cables for fusion |
| OH |
| | Bruker OST / Bruker EST | Jeff Parrell | |
Large Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| Bruker OST LLC (part of Bruker EST Inc. and Bruker Corp.) based in Carteret, NJ, is a leading manufacturer of a wide range of superconductive materials. Our interest is to participate as a supplier of Bi-2212 high temperature superconductor, and Nb3Sn and/or Nb-Ti low temperature superconductors. We are also experienced in the application of superconductors in a range of applications. |
| NJ |
| | Novum Industria LLC | Joseph V. Minervini | |
Small Business
|
Other Energy Technologies
| Novum Industria LLC was founded in 2018 as a small spin-off company comprised of a core group of scientists from the Plasma Science and Fusion Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The scientific staff of Novum Industria have many decades of technical experience spanning the range from laboratory research, advanced component and systems development, and management of large-scale projects pursuing advanced superconducting and energy technology goals. Together they have worked on magnet systems covering nearly every major application of large-scale superconductivity including fusion energy, magnetic levitation, energy storage, power generation and transmission, magnetic separation, high energy and nuclear physics, as well as medical applications.
The company CTO, Joseph Minervini, was the Program Leader for Superconducting Magnets under the OFES Virtual Laboratory for Technology for 20 years until his recent retirement. Other members of the core group also have decades of experience in every aspect of large scale superconducting magnet design, analysis, fabrication, testing, and operation, specializing in fusion magnets. Novum Industria scientists and engineers have had fundamental responsibility for the US ITER Central Solenoid Model Coil (US-CSMC) and the Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX). Development of these very successful projects required extensive collaboration with US and International Laboratories, and equally important, collaboration and direct interaction with industry.
Novum Industria is very interested in forming partnerships and/or collaborations with laboratory, university, and industry participants who wish to contribute to the ARPA-E GAMOW Program in the area of High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets. |
| MA |
| | Auburn University | Luca Guazzotto | |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| My main interest is in numerical modeling of fusion-related experiments. I have written several codes, with particular emphasis on equilibrium calculations, both in the ideal MHD and two-fluid models. I have written a time-dependent code for the simulation of pedestal formation in tokamaks. I have moreover developed a general tool for matching free- and fixed-boundary axisymmetric equilibria starting from the experimental coil geometry and regardless of the model used to describe the plasma.
A recent topic of research has been the study of ignition and burning-plasma conditions in a two-fluid model similar in approach to the Lawson one.
All the research above is described in some more detail in my webpage at Auburn University:
https://www.auburn.edu/cosam/faculty/physics/guazzotto/research/index.html
Links to relevant references are also included. |
| AL |
| | General Fusion | Michael Delage | |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| General Fusion is developing an advanced magnetized target fusion power plant design that involves the compression of a large magnetized plasma within a liquid metal cavity to high density fusion conditions. The company has developed and operates advanced Marshall gun plasma injector systems, at small scale (40 cm diameter plasma) and large scale (2 m diameter plasma). These plasmas are well confined, warm (up to 500 eV), and the injector technology offers significant flexibility in operation modify the plasma properties. General Fusion also operates a number of testbeds in support of its compression system technology, including work with liquid metal (lead and lithium). All of these experimental activities are supported by a comprehensive MHD and CFD simulation program using both common (e.g. OpenFOAM, DCON, NIMROD), and custom or heavily modified simulation codes.
General Fusion is interested in working with collaborators: capability teams and component technology teams in the areas of: (1) simulation and modeling of magnetized plasmas interacting with liquid metal free surfaces, both at large scale (CFD/MHD multi-physics modeling), and small scale (plasma/wall interaction dynamics), (2) data science and machine learning as applied to fusion, (3) liquid metal technologies, particularly for working with molten lithium and lead-lithium, (4) high repetition rate, long cycle life pulsed power systems, (5) use of advanced / additive manufacturing for fusion applications, and (6) advanced plasma diagnostics.
As a collaborator on an ARPA-E project proposal, General Fusion can deploy its engineering, science, and modeling capabilities, provide experimental plasma and liquid metal test beds (small and large scale), and access to over a decade of experimental plasma data (for machine learning applications). |
| DC |
| | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory | Ram Devanathan | |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
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Power Generation and Energy Production: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels/Nuclear
| Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America’s most pressing issues in energy and the environment through the integration of basic science and applied energy research. Relevant capabilities at PNNL include post-irradiation examination of materials, aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, atom probe tomography, solid phase processing of materials, modeling of fusion reactor materials from density functional theory to the finite element method, data analytics, and machine learning for material design. Researchers have considerable expertise in characterizing the transport of tritium at elevated temperatures under radiation damage. |
| WA |
| | University of Kentucky | Beth S. Guiton | |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Background: The PI is an early-/mid-career faculty, running a research program employing local probe techniques such as in situ heating in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) to address questions regarding synthetic mechanisms during the creation of nanomaterials, the characteristics of phase transformations on the nanoscale, and the precise positions of atoms and interfaces as they relate to material properties. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award, and a Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog award. Prior to joining the University of Kentucky (UK) faculty, Guiton was a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2008-2010), and later an ORNL/UK joint faculty appointee (2010-15), and has maintained a graduate student in Tennessee as a user at ORNL's CNMS user facility on a continuous basis since 2013.
Interest: Our group is interested to explore the stability, reactivity, and diffusion processes of nuclear fusion reactor materials under reactor-relevant conditions in real-time (on time scales of seconds to hours) and on the micro to atomic length-scale, for which we propose to employ in situ heating and high-resolution characterization in the TEM. Such short time and length scales should complement existing longer time- and length-scale characterization currently employed in the field, and provide baseline data for modeling and extrapolation.
Capabilities: As evidenced by our publications, including a recent perspective of the field as part of the Chemistry of Materials Up-and-Coming series, our group has expertise in atomic scale, real-time imaging of phase transformations, solid-liquid interfaces, and solid-solid diffusion-limited reaction processes, both in vacuum and under gaseous atmosphere. Our expertise includes (i) correlating crystal microstructure, atomic structure, and composition through real-time microscopy; (ii) characterizing real-time structural transformations with single-atom resolution; (iii) imaging liquid-solid reactions; (iv) determining atomic structure while heating under a controlled gaseous atmosphere; and (v) performing solid-state reaction chemistry in situ in the TEM. |
| KY |
| | LLNL/ORNL | Nicolai Martovetsky | |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
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Other Energy Technologies
| LLNL has a long history of expertise in fusion research, design and construction of the fusion machines. Development of the conductors, conductor joints, magnets, cryogenics, quench detection and data acquisition are currently going on in the ITER Central Solenoid Project , which is the US responsibility in this international project. This is the largest pulsed magnet. Request to supply ITER CS was based on the success of the CS Model Coil, where LLNL played a very significant role. LLNL also designed, built and tested world record quadrupole magnets for Heavy Ion Fusion Program in collaboration with LBNL and MIT PSFC.
This expertise may be available for future fusion projects with magnetic confinement. Dr. Nicolai Martovetsky is the Chief Engineer in the Magnet Systems Group in the US ITER Project. References are available upon request. |
| TN |
| | QuesTek Innovations LLC | Jason Sebastian | |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| QuesTek Innovations LLC is a small business located north of Chicago in Evanston, IL specializing in computational materials design. QuesTek’s co-founder and CSO, Prof. Gregory B. Olson, widely known as the Father of Materials Design, is also the Thermo-Calc Professor of the Practice at MIT and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. QuesTek’s mission is to enable decision-based concurrent design of materials and products. Combining the diverse expertise of our staff with our ever-evolving integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) approach, QuesTek applies our Materials by Design ® technology to reduce the gap between materials innovations and commercial adoption.
QuesTek has developed new high performance alloys across a wide variety of materials systems including Al, Co, Cu, Fe, Mo, Ni, Nb, Ti, and W-based alloys. Our commercially-available alloys include Ferrium S53®, M54®, C61â„¢ and C64®. QuesTek has also applied its Materials by Design technology to design and develop alloys for additive manufacturing, focusing on (aero)space, automotive, medical, marine, and oil&gas.
QuesTek has led several projects focused on materials challenges for fusion technologies, including design of ductile, irradiation-resistant W alloys; developing a software framework to guide design of functionally graded materials for enhanced joining of PFCs to cooling structures; and design of improved reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steel.
QuesTek’s facility contains approximately 12,000 square feet of offices and materials testing laboratories, along with a sophisticated computational design network infrastructure. Computational resources include workstations with Thermo-Calc and DICTRA thermochemical and kinetic software systems, and finite element software such as ABAQUS for mechanical and thermomechanical simulations. QuesTek also has a variety of commercial and proprietary thermodynamic databases to inform design. QuesTek’s materials testing lab includes an arc melter, vacuum induction melter, high temperature furnaces, precision saw, mounting press and automated polishing equipment; micro-hardness testing equipment, optical and electron microscopy equipment, corrosion testing setup, and wet lab. QuesTek also has access to a variety of advanced analytical facilities at Northwestern University’s user facilities including SEM, EDS, EBSD, STEM, TEM, SIMS, and LEAP, through its Tech Corporate Partners and NIST-funded CHiMaD center. |
| IL |
| | University of California Santa Barbara | G. Robert Odette | |
Academic
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Power Generation and Energy Production: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels/Nuclear
| Dr. G. Robert Odette, as a Distinguished Emeritus Research Professor, continues to lead the UCSB Materials Reliability and Performance and Group. Professor Odette’s research focuses on developing robust methods for predicting the performance, reliability and lifetime limits of materials and structures in extremely hostile service environments; and developing new, high performance materials, especially for nuclear fission and fusion energy systems. His research closely integrates experimental and modeling studies of multi-scale microstructural evolutions, using a variety of state-of-the-art computational and experimental tools. The consequences of atomic to meso-scale microstructural evolutions to deformation and fracture are both modeled, and experimentally assessed by innovative small specimen testing methods that he has developed. Professor Odette’s 279 Web of Science publications have garnered 8316 citations, with an h-index of 55 and 13300 citations with an h-index of 62 on Google Scholar (9/1/19). He is a frequent invited speaker, and has been very active professionally, including as a consultant-advisor to a number of national and international organizations. Professor Odette’s honors and awards include: the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Distinguished Achievement Award (Materials Science and Technology Division) in 1994, ANS Fellow in 1998, ANS Mishima Award (a society award for materials and fuels research) also in 1998, the ANS MSTD Literary Award in 2004 and 2016, the ANS Distinguished Achievement Award (Fusion Energy Division) in 2010 and the ANS Special Achievement Award also in 2010. In 2014 Professor Odette received the TMS Structural Materials Division Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award in recognition of his seminal contributions to the fundamental understanding of the microstructure, properties and performance of structural materials. He also was awarded the TMS 2014 JOM Best Paper in Structural Materials Award. Professor Odette was elected to the 2016 Class of TMS Fellows, which is a highly selective honor. And in 2018 Professor Odette was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Materials. A special symposium at the 19th International Conference of Fusion Materials was held in October 2019 in San Diego, honoring Professor Odette’s longstanding contributions to fusion materials research. |
| CA |
| | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Tim D. Bohm | |
Academic
|
Other Energy Technologies
| The University of Wisconsin-Madison Fusion Technology Institute (UW-FTI) in the department of Engineering Physics is the largest program in the United States for advanced degrees in fusion energy. UW-FTI personnel have designed or participated in the design of over 60 fusion power plants both in inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) and Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) concepts. These concepts covered a wide range of options that use different liquid and solid breeding materials, different coolants, different magnet types, and different structural materials.
Nuclear analysis has been the strength of the UW-FTI with expertise in neutronics, radiation shielding, neutron activation, and radwaste management. This includes analysis of simple 1-D homogenized models all the way up to highly detailed 3-D CAD models. We have developed a tool (DAGMC) that allows us to perform nuclear analysis directly in detailed CAD models using standard radiation transport codes like MCNP6, OpenMC, and Shift. This CAD based neutronics workflow eliminates the time consuming and error prone step of converting CAD models to the native transport code geometry package and allows for a common domain representation for subsequent engineering analysis (e.g. thermal hydraulic, thermal stress, etc.). We continue to develop new analysis methods and workflows to advance our nuclear analysis capabilities. For example, we have recently developed a shutdown dose rate workflow for moving sources. This was developed to calculate the shutdown dose rate during the movement of an activated component through the facility.
Recently, we have been actively participating through the US ITER Project Office (USIPO) and the ITER Organization (IO) in nuclear analysis of ITER with emphasis on analysis of first wall/shield modules, the vacuum vessel at the NBI ports, and in-vessel coils. Additionally we have provided nuclear analysis for critical design integration issues such as impacts of design changes on TF coil heating, shut down dose rate and cooling water activation. Further, we provide neutronics support to the Fusion Energy Systems Studies Project which developed a pre-conceptual design for the U.S. Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF). |
| WI |
| | Sandia National Laboratories | Robert Kolasinski | |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
|
Other Energy Technologies
| (Sandia collaborators: William Wampler, Ed Barnat, Richard Nygren, Jonathan Frank, Aidan Thompson, Habib Najm, Jon Watkins) Sandia National Laboratories has ongoing work in fusion energy that encompasses both discovery plasma science and burning plasmas (magnetic confinement). Our projects focus primarily on plasma-material interactions (PMI), plasma-facing component design, diagnosis of the edge / boundary plasma (as opposed to the hot core), as well as low temperature plasma diagnostics. To complement this work Sandia has expertise and capabilities in hydrogen / tritium science, surface analysis (Ion Beam Laboratory), rad-hardened diagnostics, and device fabrication (MESAFab). These include a wide range of microscopy tools and surface diagnostics as well as unique facilities developed specifically for studies of hydrogen in materials (e.g. gas-driven hydrogen permeation cells and thermal desorption equipment.) From a computational standpoint, we also have considerable experience in interatomic potential development and uncertainty quantification approaches for PMI applications.
Our work on PMI contributes to one of the leading research topics in confining thermonuclear plasmas. We focus on understanding the behavior of H & He in materials and on surfaces, including modification of the surfaces by impinging plasma ions. Much of this work is focused on the materials planned for ITER (tungsten & beryllium), however other materials used as surrogates or materials used for liquid facing surfaces are also studied. Our most recent work has focused on hydrogen and helium effects on advanced tungsten alloys. These studies directly impact how tritium will behave in a fusion reactor and the consequences for the in-vessel tritium inventory. We also are pursuing measurements of erosion and redeposition of materials.
Sandia diagnostics support both discovery plasma (in a collaborative research facility on low-temperature plasmas) and burning plasma research (especially at the DIII-D tokamak). Our diagnostic suite includes both remote optical/laser measurements of plasmas and the operation of Langmuir probes, DIMES, hydrogen flux sensors. These aid in determining edge plasma conditions and erosion / redeposition processes. |
| CA |
| | American Maglev Technology | Tony Morris | |
Small Business
|
Building Efficiency
| American Maglev Technology (AMT) is a certified U.S. small business based in Amelia Island, Florida. For 25 years, it has been focused on the development of low-cost, high-efficiency solutions based on magnetic-field manipulation for the transportation and energy-storage sectors. Specifically, AMT has recently invested in the development of second-generation high-temperature superconducting (2G HTS) tape for applications in fusion energy, supermagnetic energy storage (SMES) systems and other grid-scale solutions. AMT spinoff company American Supermagnetics (ASM) is in formation and has a partnership with the University of Houston Texas Center for Superconductivity for critical research. AMT and ASM are seeking commercial partners for deployment of 2G HTS-based solutions in the fusion-energy sector. |
| FL |
| | Los Alamos National Laboratory | David Dogruel | |
Federal Government
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Other Energy Technologies
| LANL has diverse capabilities related to RFI-000046. The following investigators serve as points of contact for their respective areas of interest:
David Dogruel, Chemical Diagnostics and Engineering Group (C-CDE)
dogruel@lanl.gov, 505-665-3965
Interests and capabilities include handling and processing of hydrogen and deuterium gases for fusion fuel cycle applications, hydrogen isotope storage systems with focus on metal hydride storage beds and tritium technology testing.
Victoria Hypes
vhypes@lanl.gov, 505-667-7673
Interests and capabilities include modeling of tritium interactions with liquid metals, hydrogen isotope storage systems and tritium technologies.
William Kubic
wkubic@lanl.gov, 505-667-9199
Interests and capabilities include process and systems engineering and modeling, tritium processing technologies, fuel cycle systems and processes and general chemical engineering. |
| NM |
| | Alpha-Omega Power Technologies, LLC | Ray Cravey | |
Small Business
|
Other Energy Technologies
| Alpha-Omega Power Technologies, LLC has been providing state-of-the-art high voltage pulsed power products and services since 1997. We specialize in providing high voltage, high power pulsed power solid-state solutions to the pulsed power and fusion communities. Our projects include design, testing, and fabrication from system to module level. We also specialize in exploring new designs providing custom solutions. Our customers include Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed Martin, AFRL, U.S. EPA, Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney, MIT, Harvard University, PPPL, Kimberly-Clark and many others. For applications related to inertial confinement fusion, we have collaborated with Proton Scientific, Inc., successfully completing a conceptual design of the custom pulsed power electron beam fusion (EBF) device. We plan to expand this line of research and development to continue from the design of EBF drivers to their fabrication and implementation.
Our expertise and capabilities include the following: solid-state modulators, MosFets, SiC, and IGBTs, high energy capacitor banks, pulse forming lines and Blumleins, high voltage transformers and Marx banks, voltage adder design and fractional turn transformers, high current crowbars both solid-state and spark gaps, low jitter solid-state spark gap trigger unit, vacuum insulators, accelerator design, nanosecond switching, solid-state and ferrimagnetic nonlinear transmission lines, high power microwave sources, high energy pulse ion beam source, onsite high voltage test beds for unique customer testing, PLC, HMI and Touch screen programming, micro-controller, PIC, and FPGA hardware design and programming, IOT instrumentation design, PCB design and fabrication, PSPICE and electromagnetic design, full mechanical design and documentation using SolidWorks, and a full in-house CNC machine shop. |
| NM |
| | Princeton Fusion Systems | Michael Paluszek | |
Small Business
|
Other Energy Technologies
| Princeton Fusion Systems is a small business focused on developing small, clean fusion reactors for both terrestrial and space applications. Our parent company, Princeton Satellite Systems, specializes in spacecraft control. Our reactor concept, the Princeton FRC (PFRC) reactor, is built upon a foundation of over 15 years of research and experience at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), funded primarily by the U.S. DOE and NASA. It is our mission to develop the Princeton FRC reactor design into a portable, modular power plant that can provide power in off-grid locations.
Toward this goal, we operate the PFRC-2 experiment via a subcontract to PPPL. It is a small, 2m long experiment which produces 16 cm diameter plasma FRCs for durations of up to 200 ms. Technologies which will be relevant to the next generation of PFRC and to a PFRC reactor are: high power, high efficiency switches for RF generation in the frequency range of 300 kHz to 1 MHz; next generation superconductors, tolerant to neutron damage and inductive loads, with critical field above 7 T; next generation plasma centroid and shaping control.
We have made progress toward these technologies. We produced a 500 kHz, 100 W RF board using IRF630 MOSFETs. We are interested in extending the design to the newest generation of semiconductors for power electronics, gallium nitride and silicon carbide. We have purchased a low temperature, NbTi superconducting coil with a warm bore of 30 cm and 0.5 T field on axis from Superconducting Systems, Inc. As part of a NASA contract we are testing this coil under inductive loads. We are interested in further testing of this design and extending the design to larger, higher-field coils.
We are also interested in technology areas in which we have not yet conducted experiments. One is full feedback plasma centroid and shaping control. Another is multi-layer neutron shielding tailored to the neutron spectrum of the D+D side reaction. Another is the complexly shaped ceramic heat exchanger, possibly additively manufactured, which must extend around the plasma and capture the heat from x-rays for conversion via a heat engine. Another is the first wall, though we anticipate a much lower neutron flux than a mainstream tokamak reactor. |
| NJ |
| | ORNL | Dennis Youchison | |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
|
Other Energy Technologies
| Plasma Facing Component Development Team for Fusion Energy Production
Collaborators: Travis Gray (ORNL), Dennis Youchison (ORNL), Doug Wolfe (ARL/PSU), Brian Williams (Ultramet, Inc.)
This lab/university/industry team develops and tests actively cooled plasma facing components for divertors and first walls operating at extremely high heat fluxes and temperatures and is available to galvanize PFC advances for market-driven institutions and private industry.
Travis Gray studied the PMI of lithium substrates and vapor shielding and most recently was involved with high heat flux testing and validation of plasma facing component designs for the NSTX-U Recovery project utilizing electron beam high heat flux testing at ARL. He also collaborates with CFS and other private firms on development of advanced PFCs. Dennis Youchison has 30 years of experience in plasma facing component development. His expertise is in CFD, thermalhydraulics, high temperature materials, PMI and electron beam HHF testing of actively cooled plasma facing components, helium cooling, joining and applications of advanced coatings and manufacturing techniques. Doug Wolfe and ARL/PSU produce a variety of advanced coatings and engineered materials and provide HHF testing capabilities using the EB-60, a 60 kW digitally rastered electron beam, used for thermal performance, fatigue and thermal shock evaluations of PFCs. Brian Williams is a research director at Ultramet, Inc. which develops and manufactures advanced materials primarily by chemical vapor deposition/infiltration for use in extreme thermal, chemical, and mechanical environments. For over 50 years, Ultramet has teamed with government and commercial end-users to develop refractory metal and ceramic coatings and freestanding structures used in a broad variety of aerospace, medical, and energy applications. Patents have been secured and all the necessary manufacturing and quality systems to support production have been put in place, including manufacturing and operation plans, quality assurance, ISO certification, material and process specifications, capital equipment, and personnel training. Previous and ongoing work for the Department of Energy includes development of tungsten-based plasma-facing components, solid breeders, and flow channel inserts for fusion energy systems, foam-based heat exchangers operating with various coolants, advanced fission fuels and coatings, and high-field superconducting radio frequency cavities. |
| TN |
| | Energy Driven Technologies LLC | Jean Paul Allain | |
Small Business
|
Power Generation and Energy Production: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels/Nuclear
| Energy Driven Technologies is a startup located in Champaign, IL, focused on the development of advanced materials for applications in the energy industry, specifically in nuclear fusion reactors. The company has been awarded over $1.5M in STTR funding from the Department of Energy focused on plasma material fabrication, characterization, and diagnostic technologies. The founder and President, Dr. Jean Paul Allain is the Department Head of the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.
We are making strides toward the commercialization of advanced materials for plasma-facing components in nuclear fusion devices. Development work focuses on creating a material system that can withstand the heat and radiation within the fusion environment without introducing high-Z elements into the plasma through a hybrid material system. Our technology involves the manufacture of mesoporous ultra-fine grain tungsten scaffolding with surface modification to support a liquid lithium surface layer. We achieve this through nanostructuring of the surface to enhance liquid metal wetting through our proprietary nanopatterning technology.
Our team has experience with a number of characterization technologies, including both imaging and chemical analysis which we have relied on for our material development efforts. We operate a surface modification facility and have access to numerous resources at the University of Illinois. We have ongoing collaborative work at the University on the HIDRA-MAT PFC testing facility, which is integrated into the HIDRA stellarator device, enabling plasma exposure to sample surfaces with in-situ characterization, including thermal desorption spectroscopy and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. This facility examines lithium wetting, surface damage, hydrogen recycling, helium retention, and the formation of impurity complexes on material surfaces without exposing them to the atmosphere, which is used to guide our material development process. Our areas of focus include material fabrication, surface modification/nanopatterning, characterization, and performance testing. |
| IL |
| | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | David Donovan | |
Academic
|
Other Energy Technologies
| The study of Plasma-Materials Interactions (PMI) focuses on the challenges of designing a reactor vessel wall that must withstand the extreme fluxes of heat, charged particles, and high energy neutrons emitted from the core fusion plasma. The University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK) Nuclear Engineering Department collaborates with experiments at ORNL, PPPL and General Atomics to operate diagnostics, plan experiments, and interpret results. UTK operates diagnostics on the DIII-D experiment at General Atomics including surface eroding thermocouples used to assess surface heat flux and impurity collector probes used to assess impurity transport. UTK also is a lead collaborator in the PSI SciDAC program, which is a multi-institutional program to develop high fidelity computational models with the goal of predicting the performance and impact of dynamic PFC surfaces in a fusion environment.
To enable the safety and environmental attractiveness of fusion energy, a central requirement is the development of high-performance so-called reduced activation materials that ensures public safety during all conceivable accident scenarios and also do not produce long-lived radioactive waste. Research at UT is focused on advanced multi-scale computational modeling and experimental studies to explore the fundamentals of radiation effects in materials and the influence of neutron transmutation-induced gases such as H and He on the overall microstructural evolution of materials during irradiation. Utilization of advanced manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing is also being explored to fabricate geometrically complex, high-performance structural materials with superior neutron irradiation resistance. Both ion beam and neutron irradiation studies are being performed.
Concepts for replenishing the tritium fuel that would be consumed during operation of a fusion reactor are based on neutron-induced transmutation of lithium compounds in the blanket region adjacent to the plasma-facing components. Both solid ceramic and liquid concepts are under investigation worldwide. Key scientific issues include the permeation and trapping of hydrogen isotopes in these materials, as well as advanced technologies to efficiently and reliably extract the generated tritium from hot flowing fluids so that it can be processed into fuel pellets to sustain the fusion reaction. UTK collaborates with ORNL and other institutions to study theory and technology for blanket systems. |
| TN |
| | Eagle Harbor Technologies, Inc. | James Prager | |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| Eagle Harbor Technologies (EHT) Inc. provides innovative solid-state power solutions to solve challenging problems in fusion and low-temperature plasma science and engineering. EHT specializes in precision control of solid-state switch gate drive for enables fast, low-jitter switching. This capability allows for massive parallelization of solid-state switches for high current applications. EHT has used this to develop power systems for magnet driving, tube driving, arc modulation, fast neutral beam voltage modulation, and resonant load driving for fusion science applications. EHT has developed systems using IGBTs, SiC MOSFETs, and GaN HEMTs. EHT has experience with solid-state switching at high peak power levels and pulse repetition frequencies and seeks to advance the state-of-the-art in solid-state power systems to enable the next generation of fusion experiments, and ultimately, reactors. |
| WA |
| | CompX | R.W. (Bob) Harvey | |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| CompX is a consulting group comprised of a project director and several physicists who focus on computational modeling of the auxiliary heating of magnetic confinement, fusion energy and plasma devices. We are engaged in long term development and upgrading of computer modeling codes which give phase-space distributions of electrons and ions resulting from DC electric field, rf wave, plasma sources, and radial transport in toroidal magnetic confinement devices; and in open magnetic systems such as magnetic mirrors. These comprehensive physics-based models have proven useful for interpretation and projection of plasma heating, current drive, and particle source experiments in tokamak, spherical tokamak, reverse field pinch, and the GDT axisymmetric mirror plasmas.
The CompX codes are open source, after the main development stage. We provide support for their use, and further development as needed, under contracts from the USDOE Fusion Energy Science Program, universities and industry. We also have experience with several auxiliary codes related to the in-house codes, such as for full-wave radiofrequency wave modeling and neutrals.
Our focus is on obtaining the time-dependent and steady-state momentum space and configuration space distributions of electrons and multiple species of ions, on the collisional time scales. The distributions are obtained by solving appropriate Fokker-Planck equations either by continuum finite-difference/finite-volume methods, or by Monte Carlo methods. The Fokker-Planck codes include models for the main auxiliary heating systems used in fusion energy research: neutral beam fast ion sources, and radiofrequency wave heating. The NB source is modeled with a Monte Carlo deposition code including the NB optics. The all-frequencies/wave-modes RF wave heating is modeled with an in-house ray tracing code, or with full-wave codes. The resulting particle sources and RF diffusion coefficients are coupled in to the Fokker-Planck codes.
The available in-house codes are described at www.compxco.com/ . There are a wide-range of coupled diagnostics for comparison with experiment, and a fusion neutron/particle calculation to estimate fusion power production. |
| CA |
| | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Thomas Schenkel | |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
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Other Energy Technologies
| Our background, current interests and capabilities include:
-high field magnets, high temperature superconducting magnet science and technology
-particle sources and beams (electrons and ions)
-short pulse lasers, laser-matter interactions, laser-plasma acceleration of electrons and ions
-high performance computing, theory, modeling and simulation of particle accelerators and plasmas
-precision instrumentation and controls of particle accelerators, lasers and magnets
-plasma applications (from plasma ion sources to plasma coatings)
-neutron sources
-nuclear diagnostics |
| CA |
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