Calculational methods for fusion-plasma engineering

Fusion plasma engineering involves the analysis of fusion plasma behavior under realistic conditions expected in future fusion reactors, i.e., it might be viewed as applied plasma physics. In a sense, then, the study of fusion plasma engineering for a fusion reactor is analogous to studies of core neutronics (reactor physics) for a fission reactor. These methods typically involve some techniques used in basic plasma physics studies, but the application to reactor conditions brings in new demands (e.g., complex geometries and boundary conditions, nonuniform fields, impurities and neutral gas fluxes) that are frequently omitted in idealized plasma physics calculations. These demands in turn force the use techniques such as multigroup treatments, Monte Carlo, etc., that are traditional in fission reactor physics but have not previously found much use in plasma studies. In the present discussion, several methods of this type will be discussed as examples and similarities as well as differences compared ot fission reactor methods will be stressed