Engineering Papers⌕ Search
Home/Archive/DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI · 3375167

ARC disruption physics and strategy

Sweeney, Ryan [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000334081497)·Riccardo, Valeria [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Braun, Anson [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)]·Clauser, Cesar [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000225975061)·Creely, Alexander J. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:000000024464150X)·Eich, Thomas [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Ekmark, Ida [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000180654650)·Feyrer, Abigail [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)]·Hansen, Christopher [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000169285815)·Hillesheim, Jon C. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0009000959113417)·Looby, Tom [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000212752758)·Ratynskaia, Svetlana [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)]·Schramm, Raphael [Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching (Germany)]·Tinguely, R. Alex [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000237111834)·Wu, Hao [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000257849449)·Boguski, John [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Boyer, Mark D. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Carmichael, Justin [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Carter, Austin [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Datta, Rishabh [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000196118449)·Fülöp, Tünde [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000258980393)·Granetz, Robert [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)]·Guizzo, Sophia [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)]·Hoppe, Mathias [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000339948977)·LeViness, Alexandra [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000225520411)·Nelson, Andrew O. [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000296121936)·Paschalidis, Konstantinos [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)]·Paz-Soldan, Carlos [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000150694934)·Pusztai, Istvan [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000154124090)·Rea, Cristina [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000299482649)·Rizzi, Tommaso [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)]·Saperstein, Alex R. [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)]·Snyder, Philip B. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)]·Stein-Lubrano, Benjamin [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)]·Tolias, Panagiotis [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000196328104)
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) plans to operate a tokamak power plant called ARC in the early 2030s. Tokamak plasmas have stability limits that, if crossed, lead to a rapid termination of the plasma, referred to as a disruption. Disruptions pose a melt risk to the first wall resulting from thermal and non-thermal particle heat fluxes, and an electromagnetic loading risk on all metal components within the equilibrium coils. A comprehensive set of models is used herein to provide an assessment of both mitigated and unmitigated ARC disruption loads. A preliminary massive gas injection system is baselined and a runaway electron mitigation coil option is proposed to close possible gaps in the baseline. It is predicted that all ARC disruption loads are within a factor of 2 of the disruption loads in SPARC, a tokamak presently under construction by CFS, and therefore SPARC provides an opportunity to calibrate models, test solutions and inform the design of ARC. The goal for ARC is disruption-free operation, however, the pragmatic design target is to withstand one mitigated disruption per day, and to restart the plasma following mitigation in tens of seconds without interrupting the power output. Unmitigated disruptions must be rare, and experience with unmitigated disruption impacts in SPARC will better define what rare means. The implications of this strategy for plasma disruptivity and disruption prediction are discussed, and operating the ARC scenario on SPARC is expected to refine the ARC final design and operational plan.

Explore related subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGYARCSPARCdisruptionsfusion plasmamassive gas injectionplasma instabilitiesrunaway electronstokamak

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Sweeney, Ryan [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000334081497), Riccardo, Valeria [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Braun, Anson [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)], Clauser, Cesar [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000225975061), Creely, Alexander J. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:000000024464150X), Eich, Thomas [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Ekmark, Ida [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000180654650), Feyrer, Abigail [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)], Hansen, Christopher [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000169285815), Hillesheim, Jon C. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0009000959113417), Looby, Tom [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000212752758), Ratynskaia, Svetlana [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)], Schramm, Raphael [Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching (Germany)], Tinguely, R. Alex [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000237111834), Wu, Hao [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000257849449), Boguski, John [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Boyer, Mark D. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Carmichael, Justin [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Carter, Austin [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Datta, Rishabh [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000196118449), Fülöp, Tünde [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000258980393), Granetz, Robert [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)], Guizzo, Sophia [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)], Hoppe, Mathias [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000339948977), LeViness, Alexandra [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000225520411), Nelson, Andrew O. [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000296121936), Paschalidis, Konstantinos [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)], Paz-Soldan, Carlos [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000150694934), Pusztai, Istvan [Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000154124090), Rea, Cristina [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000299482649), Rizzi, Tommaso [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)], Saperstein, Alex R. [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)], Snyder, Philip B. [Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Devens, MA (United States)], Stein-Lubrano, Benjamin [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)], Tolias, Panagiotis [KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)] (ORCID:0000000196328104). 2026-06-04. ARC disruption physics and strategy. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022377826101585

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related reports

DOE OSTI2026

Fast solvers for tokamak fluid models with PETSc

Multigrid (MG) is widely recognized as a highly effective solver for the model problem, the Laplacian, but textbook MG fails on most problems of interest. MG methods have been applied to complex, real-world applications with careful consideration of the physical model and discretization. In this work we develop the first step in applying MG methods to science and engineering relevant magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) tokamak models in the M3D-C1 (https://m3dc1.pppl.gov) fusion energy science code. The semi-implicit time integrator in M3D-C1 is composed of many linear solves. The implicit advance of the momentum equation is the most challenging and is the focus of this work. The current production solver in M3D-C1 is a block Jacobi (BJ) preconditioner within a Krylov solver, where blocks group degrees of freedom on planes of constant toroidal coordinate. BJ convergence degrades as the number of planes increases due to the spectral properties of the matrix preconditioned with BJ. The partially magnetic field-aligned, regular toroidal grid structure in M3D-C1 is amenable to semi-coarsening geometric MG in the toroidal direction. This paper develops such a solver and demonstrates competitive performance on a runaway electron model of a SPARC (https://cfs.energy/technology/sparc) disruption, and superior robustness on a stellarator model on which the BJ solver fails to converge.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Final Report: A Multi-Channel Fusion Product

The goal of this project was to measure charged fusion products from the d(d,p)t reaction in MAST-U plasmas as a function of time and position with good energy resolution using a system of up to six charged particle detectors. The data from this new diagnostic will make it possible to determine the neutral beam ion density profile as a function of R, z, and t with reduced model dependency and contribute new information to a global analysis of fast ion diagnostic data needed for the determination of the fast ion distribution function (velocity space tomography).

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Unitary Qubit Lattice Algorithms for Plasma Physics

This final technical report summarizes research conducted under DOE Award DE-SC0021653 to develop unitary Quantum Lattice Algorithms for modeling electromagnetic wave propagation and scattering in complex media, including plasmas. The project developed and validated quantum-inspired formulations of Maxwell's equations that preserve unitary evolution and can be evaluated on classical high-performance computing systems while providing a foundation for future quantum-computing implementations. Major accomplishments include the development of two- and three-dimensional algorithms for electromagnetic scattering; scalable, distributed-memory implementations demonstrated on the Perlmutter supercomputer; formulations for nonlinear lossless fluid dynamics and cold, lossless, inhomogeneous magnetized plasmas; and an explicit quantum algorithm for a time-discretized Lorenz model. Simulations reproduced a range of characteristic wave phenomena, including transient effects that are not readily apparent in conventional frequency-domain studies, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach for modeling complex electromagnetic and plasma systems. The work establishes a unified theoretical and computational framework for quantum and quantum-inspired simulation and provides a foundation for future implementation on fault-tolerant quantum systems.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗