UW researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor. Shown here is a

Gaming graphics card allows faster, more precise control of fusion energy experiments

submited by

Style Pass

2021-07-22 18:00:10

UW researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor. Shown here is a view from inside the reactor: Plasma (bright streams) enters from the injectors on the top of the device and then organizes into a ring around the two cones visible in the middle (view here is from the side of the ring). These plasma streams move very quickly — this video is only three-thousandths of a second long. Credit: University of Washington

This process, which also occurs in the sun, involves plasmas, fluids composed of charged particles, being heated to extremely high temperatures so that the atoms fuse together, releasing abundant energy.

One challenge to performing this reaction on Earth is the dynamic nature of plasmas, which must be controlled to reach the required temperatures that allow fusion to happen. Now researchers at the University of Washington have developed a method that harnesses advances in the computer gaming industry: It uses a gaming graphics card, or GPU, to run the control system for their prototype fusion reactor.

“You need this level of speed and precision with plasmas because they have such complex dynamics that evolve at very high speeds. If you cannot keep up with them, or if you mispredict how plasmas will react, they have a nasty habit of going in the totally wrong direction very quickly,” said co-author Chris Hansen, a UW senior research scientist in the aeronautics and astronautics department.