University funding nuclear fusion research with seed grants

The Institute for Fusion Studies at UT funded four projects with seed grants, the University announced in an Aug. 31 news release. The grants, also funded by the College of Engineering and the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences, will allow researchers to pay students on their teams.

The University’s enthusiasm for fusion energy stems from renewed private sector interest in the technology, said Diego del-Castillo-Negrete, director of the Institute for Fusion Studies and research professor in the physics department. Del-Castillo-Negrete created this grant program, according to a UT news release.

While the fusion process has been around for a long time, private companies now believe that fusion could become a viable energy source, del-Castillo-Negrete said.

Fusion is a form of nuclear energy that involves merging elements together to release energy. Del-Castillo-Negrete said fusion produces more energy with less radiation than fission, the type of energy traditionally used in nuclear power plants, and fusion may be able to help reduce dependence on coal or fossil fuels.

“This is a new era for fusion in which ideally we will benefit from all the scientific knowledge accumulated with a lot of resources to actually build these machines,” del-Castillo-Negrete said. “The problems that we used to work on in the ‘80s and ‘90s are different to the problems that we need to solve now.”

Del-Castillo-Negrete also said that as fusion has moved from theory to practical application, interdisciplinary research has become more important, which is why the seed grants funded projects outside of the physics department. Seed grants are meant to generate proof of concepts so they can apply for more funding in the future.

“We still need physics and math to do the fundamental aspects, but we now need to deal with the construction problems, and this is why we need a little bit of help from the engineers and also people doing high-performance computing and, of course, machine learning AI,” del-Castillo-Negrete said. “UT is one of the best places, honestly, because it’s a very big university, very prestigious, not only in one area.”

The projects funded by the seed grants include research into plasma modeling and preventing leaks of alpha particles from reactors.

One of the projects is led by David Hatch, an associate research professor in the Department of Physics. He is working on simulating liquid-metal alloys for use within the plasma-facing section of a fusion reactor. The heat flux within a reactor is so extreme that solid metals cannot withstand it, so Hatch is developing liquid metal alloys that can adjust to the temperature changes.

“If we do design these materials, then the next generation of fusion devices will be a lot more flexible and a lot more powerful, a lot more secure and safe,” Hatch said. “That opens up a lot of possibilities that wouldn’t be possible otherwise for fusion reactors.”

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