Speaker
Description
In 2020, a high-fidelity 360° MCNP model of the ITER tokamak was developed by assembling seven replicas of the C-Model (a 40° sector of a regular vacuum vessel segment), integrating the 80° toroidal segment of the Neutral Beam Injector (NBI), and incorporating all available MCNP models of ITER ports, followed by targeted refinements. The resulting E-lite model represented a significant advancement in nuclear analysis, enabling unprecedented realism in the assessment of critical parameters, and a paper on the work was subsequently published in Nature Energy.
Following the initial release, the model underwent targeted updates for specific applications, though no formal versions were issued. At the 34th Meeting of the ITER Council in 2024, the ITER Organization proposed an updated project baseline to the Council. The revised baseline focuses on accelerating the start of major research operations by optimizing tokamak assembly, strengthening pre-assembly testing, and reducing assembly and commissioning risks. As part of licensing considerations, the beryllium used as the plasma facing material of the blanket First Walls (FW) was also replaced by tungsten, a change expected to impact radiation conditions both inside the plasma chamber and outside the Vacuum Vessel (VV). This milestone presented an ideal opportunity to consolidate all updates from recent years, implement the FW material change, and produce a new official release of the E-lite model – E-lite_R250630.
In this work the latest update of the E-lite model is presented, featuring a heterogeneous (tungsten FW, explicit water channels and material layers separated) representation of most Blanket Shield Modules (BSM) and introducing approximately 660 tons of components within the Bioshield. The presentation also highlights additional improvements to the ITER machine representation, alongside the improved modularity of E-lite to simplify and automatise the extraction of specific sectors.
This model was tested using the Gitronics workflow, a novel modular and Git-based approach for the management and development of complex radiation transport models. In a pilot study, E-lite_R250630 was decomposed into smaller units (such as the envelope structure, universes, and materials), stored in a Git repository, and reassembled using tools within Gitronics. The results demonstrated statistical equivalence with the original E-lite model, unlocking potential for future neutronics reference model development, and shown a fast and reliable deployment of multiple, operation-specific E-lite configurations (i.e., SRO, DT1, DT2).
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