Introducing the BLUEMIRA fusion reactor design tool
As the global fusion community moves into the conceptual design phase of next- generation reactors, a familiar set of challenges arises: how do we build consistent reactor designs, evaluate them efficiently, and make meaningful comparisons between different concepts? Systems codes have been the workhorse tool for this stage, and they’ve been very successful in guiding projects towards promising regions of design space. But these codes typically use low-fidelity physics and engineering models, and that limits the scope of the questions we can ask.
In this talk, we introduce BLUEMIRA, an open-source tokamak reactor design tool built on the BLUEPRINT and MIRA codes. The goal of BLUEMIRA is to go beyond the traditional systems-code paradigm by letting users parameterise reactor designs at higher fidelity. Within a single workflow, you can start with 0-D radial build models, carry out equilibrium calculations, and then generate 3-D CAD along with automated neutronics analyses — often in a matter of minutes.
We demonstrate these capabilities through the conceptual design of a conventional aspect-ratio tokamak, showing how BLUEMIRA can be used not just for rapid scoping studies, but also for linking higher-fidelity physics and engineering analyses directly into the design loop.