Integrated workflow for DEMO divertor design using Reduced Order Models

EU-DEMO (European Demonstration Fusion Power Plant) is considered the successor to the experimental fusion reactor ITER (”The Way”). EU-DEMO will have to operate under significantly more demanding conditions, reaching the energy production of an industrial-scale plant, producing energy continuously. This case study examines the EU-DEMO divertor, a critical component of nuclear fusion reactors and one of the most significant engineering challenges to be addressed.The divertor has to handle extremely high heat fluxes, due to the discharge of exhausted ion particles, and it is subjected to intense neutron fluxes, while providing shielding to the vacuum vessel and the vacuum pumping system in order to reduce plasma contamination. The development of such a complex component requires the integration of multi-physics analysis, such as plasma or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, which are more computationally expensive, with EM/FEM analysis, which are generally less time-consuming. A BPMN-based (Business Process Model and Notation) model was developed to comprehensively map the multi-disciplinary phases of the divertor design process. This work highlights the differences in terms of time consumption among various simulation approaches, suggesting the exploration of alternative methodologies.This paper investigates the feasibility of integrating a pre-existing high-fidelity database of plasma physics simulations into the modeFRONTIER software, as a case study, to evaluate the capability of predicting the heat flux on divertor targets through mathematical models, thereby accelerating the assessment of different scenarios and reducing computational time and resources.