The DIII-D National Fusion Facility provides hundreds of scientists worldwide as well as the burgeoning private fusion energy industry with reliable access to experimental runtime on a research tokamak. Recently selected as a pathfinder for the US Department of Energy's Integrated Research Infrastructure (IRI), DIII- D is pioneering new ways of data analysis and simulation. 

This ALCC award supports all researchers at DIII-D with automated, resilient data analysis and simulation at remote compute facilities like ALCF and NERSC which is then returned to the DIII-D control room fast enough in order to make actionable decisions for the on-going experiment. Specifically, both the plasma kinetic equilibria and the energetic particle heat-load deposition are calculated remotely, on-demand. Kinetic equilibria provide a very accurate self-consistent representation of the plasma state. Simulating the particle heat load deposition on the walls is crucial for protecting diagnostics, eliminating hot spots, and reducing impurities from carbon wall ablation. This data is used immediately to better inform the course of the experiment, for improved follow-on analyses that build upon this higher-fidelity foundation, as well as for populating historical databases that can be used for surrogate model creation by other researchers. 

This effort is the first time that ALCC compute resources are being used in support of IRI workflow patterns for the DIII-D facility, and is directly aligned with the DOE-Advanced Scientific Computing Research’s and Fusion Energy Science’s mission to support fusion energy research and to continue building an Integrated Research Infrastructure that multiplies the scientific impact coming from the DIII-D User Facility.