A fusion equipment testing facility, known as CHIMERA, being built by the UKAEA (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) in Rotherham, Yorkshire will use EPICS control software developed by Observatory Sciences Ltd (OSL).
Construction of the testing facility is being undertaken by global technical services company Jacobs, which has selected Observatory Sciences, to produce the SCADA software for the CHIMERA control system.
The UKAEA’s Fusion Technology Facility is at the forefront of global efforts to develop nuclear fusion as a major source of low-carbon electricity. At the heart of the testing facility is CHIMERA (Combined Heating and Magnetic Research Apparatus), a system designed to address the specific engineering challenges associated with nuclear fusion. It is the only device in the world able to test critical fusion component prototypes, such as blankets, divertors and diagnostic modules, in an environment representative of a fusion power plant.
CHIMERA is designed to simulate combinations of high heat flux with static and pulsed magnetic fields within a vacuum or inert atmosphere, as could be found in an operational fusion power plant. This includes heating to 0.5 Megawatts/m2; up to 4 Tesla magnetic fields with high spatial horizontal gradients and rapidly pulsed vertical fields to simulate a plasma disruption; vacuum pressure to 10-5 bar, and water cooling to PWR (pressurised water reactor) conditions, 155 bar and 330°C.
Optical digital image correlation and laser metrology will be used to map 3D surface deformations and other damage of the test pieces due to the harsh testing environment. Digital twins, predictive models and simulations, will be used alongside the real tests to help perfect designs for future fusion power components. This ‘virtual qualification’ is a key strand of CHIMERA’s capability, enabling double-checking and ensuring steady progress of the test programmes.
The CHIMERA control system will consist of a distributed set of programmable logic controllers, each controlling a hardware subsystem of the overall facility. A separate LabVIEW-based data acquisition system will acquire high-speed data at the time of each magnetic pulse. This process is time critical, and a large amount of data has to be made available for further analysis.
With recognised EPICS software expertise, Observatory Sciences has developed many large-scale plant and machine control systems based on the EPICS framework, which is a set of Open Source software tools, libraries and applications developed collaboratively and used worldwide to create distributed soft real-time control systems for scientific instruments such as accelerators, telescopes and other large scientific experiments. The CHIMERA SCADA software is OSL’s first major contract in the field of nuclear fusion.