Case Study: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH achieves 10x faster tungsten-fiber production with COMSOL Multiphysics

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH cuts tungsten layer production from 5 hours to 30 minutes with Comsol

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ), alongside the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, faced the challenge of optimizing the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process used to create a tough tungsten composite material for fusion reactor divertors. A key obstacle was preventing pore formation, which weakens the material, but predicting the complex deposition rate was difficult due to contradictory data. To solve this, they turned to multiphysics modeling with the COMSOL Multiphysics software.

Using COMSOL Multiphysics, researcher Leonard Raumann developed and validated a complete model of the CVD process, from determining a new deposition rate equation to simulating pore formation across multiple fibers. The optimized parameters from the model were applied experimentally, drastically reducing production time. COMSOL's solution enabled the team to accelerate the layer production time from 5 hours to just 30 minutes, a tenfold improvement that makes the economical production of high-performance fusion reactor materials feasible.

Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (fzj)