Novel Approaches and Challenges in Nuclear Fusion Engineering

Dear Colleagues,

Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is expected to be a safe, non-polluting, and virtually limitless energy resource. In the future, it is foreseen that nuclear fusion power plants could spread all over the world into the energy production context, reducing the contribution to electricity coming from fossil fuels and other polluting resources. The achievement of such a goal requires the solution of many challenging problems in a wide range of engineering fields, requiring the discovery of novel solutions and the development of new technologies. This Special Issue aims at collecting scientific and technical manuscripts on the technical and theoretical aspects concerning the most important issues to be faced to design and safely operate a future nuclear fusion power plant. The key focus of the Special Issue is to describe the current state of the art, the emerging technologies, and new technical solutions under investigation in nuclear fusion engineering, including (but not limited to) the following key topics:

• Balance of plant in a nuclear fusion facility;
• High-current and high-voltage power supplies;
• Electrical distribution systems for pulsed loads;
• High-performance (electric, magnetic, and thermal) energy storage systems;
• Solutions and layouts for cooling and heat transport
• Power conversion, power generation, and connection to the external grid;
• Thermomechanical design of structural elements and plasma-facing components;
• Advances in applied superconductivity;
• Heating and current drive technologies;
• Nuclear and real-time diagnostics;
• Plasma scenarios and equilibria design, optimization, and control;
• Solutions for power exhaust management;
• Technologies for tritium extraction and fuel cycle;
• Safety and reliability issues in nuclear fusion;
• Design and management of experimental facilities.

Dr. Simone Minucci
Dr. Alessandro Lampasi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• nuclear fusion
• high-current and high-voltage power supplies
• pulsed loads
• energy storage
• electromechanical and thermomechanical analysis
• balance of plant of nuclear fusion facilities
• power conversion system in nuclear fusion facilities
• applied superconductivity
• heating and current drive
• applied cryogeny
• power exhaust
• safety and rami analysis
• nuclear and real-time diagnostics
• fuel cycle