DOE OSTI2015
The realization of controlled thermonuclear fusion as an energy source would transform society, providing a nearly limitless energy source with renewable fuel. Under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program management recently launched a series of technical workshops to “seek community engagement and input for future program planning activities” in the targeted areas of (1) Integrated Simulation for Magnetic Fusion Energy Sciences, (2) Control of Transients, (3) Plasma Science Frontiers, and (4) Plasma-Materials Interactions aka Plasma-Materials Interface (PMI). Over the past decade, a number of strategic planning activities1-6 have highlighted PMI and plasma facing components as a major knowledge gap, which should be a priority for fusion research towards ITER and future demonstration fusion energy systems. There is a strong international consensus that new PMI solutions are required in order for fusion to advance beyond ITER. The goal of the 2015 PMI community workshop was to review recent innovations and improvements in understanding the challenging PMI issues, identify high-priority scientific challenges in PMI, and to discuss potential options to address those challenges. The community response to the PMI research assessment was enthusiastic, with over 80 participants involved in the open workshop held at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory on May 4-7, 2015. The workshop provided a useful forum for the scientific community to review progress in scientific understanding achieved during the past decade, and to openly discuss high-priority unresolved research questions. One of the key outcomes of the workshop was a focused set of community-initiated Priority Research Directions (PRDs) for PMI. Five PRDs were identified, labeled A-E, which represent community consensus on the most urgent near-term PMI scientific issues. For each PRD, an assessment was made of the scientific challenges, as well as a set of actions to address those challenges. No prioritization was attempted amongst these five PRDs. We note that ITER, an international collaborative project to substantially extend fusion science and technology, is implicitly a driver and beneficiary of the research described in these PRDs; specific ITER issues are discussed in the background and PRD chapters. For succinctness, we describe these PRDs directly below; a brief introduction to magnetic fusion and the workshop process/timeline is given in Chapter I, and panelists are listed in the Appendix.