U.S., Japan seek fusion power source Click for complete story Tuesday, 12 June 2001 17:39 (ET) U.S., Japan seek fusion power source APEX, N.C., June 12 (UPI) -- A small American software manufacturer has teamed with one of Japan's largest research institutes to implement what many experts call the Holy Grail of energy production -- a working fusion reactor. Apex-based Computational Engineering International and the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in Tokyo are using CEI's new imaging and modeling software to simulate the shape, energy, and behavior of electromagnetic plasma in a working fusion reactor. Fusion, the energy source in stars, is the process by which two atomic nuclei fuse to produce a single nucleus, releasing vast amounts of energy. Uncontrolled fusion has been achieved in the hydrogen bomb, but efforts to control fusion for energy generation have been only moderately successful. "Obviously fusion is still a long way off but we are able to model how plasma, which is essentially a gas, would behave under a variety of circumstances in a fusion reactor," said CEI President Kent Misegades. "The software simulates actual phenomena that might take place in a reactor -- everything from small flow perturbations to what might happen if something became unstable." Misegades said his 12-person company, a spin-off of computer giant Cray Research, created the program to be a "scientist's toolbox" designed to go where scientists cannot. "Obviously you can't simply open the door to a nuclear reactor to look at the results of your tests," Misegades told United Press International. Kenneth Visser, a mechanical and aeronautical engineering professor at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., and an expert in experimental aerodynamics and measurement techniques, told UPI that many companies create software packages that model fluid flow. For complex, in-house projects, however, most firms design their own. "When I worked at Boeing on the 767-400, they were using their own modeling software called TranAir," Visser told UPI from his office. "I'm actually surprised the Japan atomic energy researchers don't do the same, unless they buy the software from CEI and customize it in-house by rewriting or altering the source code." Visser said flow modeling is based on simple mathematics that becomes complex with the idiosyncrasies of each user's environment. "Everything generally starts with the Navier-Stokes mathematical equation that tells how fluid flows," Visser explained. "It becomes complex when you are trying to model something continuous -- like a stream -- that must be decomposed into finite, discrete points in order to properly describe all the ins and outs of a particular scenario." Visser said such models must deal with two types of flows -- simple "laminar," or continuous flow; and "turbulent" flows that more resemble hurricanes than gently flowing streams. "Turbulence introduces the kind of complexity that normally drives flow-modeling software design in-house," Visser said. Clarkson University's Brian Helenbrook agrees. "It takes a lot of expertise to write these sorts of programs," Helenbrook, an assistant professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, told UPI. "It's very possible the Japanese researchers don't have the expertise, so they buy the software from an outside vendor like CEI and have it customized." Helenbrook said unless CEI's software is equipped with a "very friendly user interface," the source code would "likely have to be altered" to make the program work in any given environment. "What the Japanese atomic energy researchers are doing is very similar to what I used to do at Stanford University," Helenbrook said. "They are simulating all the physics involved in a giant experiment -- entirely inside a computer." (Reported by UPI Science Correspondent Mike Martin in Washington.) -- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrHhl.bVKZIr Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
