Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an AI model database to identify new alloys that could revolutionize nuclear fusion facilities. This groundbreaking work promises to accelerate the development of fusion energy, a clean and sustainable power source of the future.
Tackling the Fusion Challenge
Nuclear fusion has for years been seen as the ultimate energy source — one capable of providing potentially unlimited, clean, and safe power. But the desired dream is more elusive and – here’s the sticky part — there are material issues that must be confronted to survive this extreme environment in a fusion reactor.
Until now, tungsten-based alloys have been the typical materials used by researchers for shielding and structural components in fusion facilities. Although these materials have been able to withstand high temperature, they were not adequate to sustain the required shielding constituents. It’s here that a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have turned to the capabilities of AI, recognizing new types of alloys that could be a game changer.
AI-Driven Materials Discovery
The new AI model database developed by ORNL AI data scientist Massimiliano Lupo Pasini and his team assists in swiftly categorizing potential alloy candidates for use in fusion reactors. These researchers include a team of ORNL scientists from the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate and the Physical Sciences Directorate.
This involves an entirely new way of doing things and the key to it all is using AI to cut through methods that have dominated materials science research for hundreds of years. Using computational simulations and machine learning algorithms, the researchers quickly found that three metallic elements could also have promise as new alloy candidates.
But that’s just the start. The team again recognizes the essential foundational role in materials discovery and design this dataset will play as they prepare for subsequent research into even more advanced machine learning models that will be developed, trained, deployed.
Conclusion
The creation of such a database for AI models is an important advance towards harnessing the promise of nuclear fusion as an alternative, CO2-free energy source. With the help of artificial intelligence in materials discovery, researchers are now able to more efficiently identify high-performance alloys that would be necessary to make fusion facilities a reality. As the team continues to learn from this initial success, even more impressive accomplishments remain on the horizon in years to come, opening exciting new pathways toward a future running on limitless star power.
