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JOREK magneto-hydro-dynamic simulation code now available open source

19 Oct 2026 - F.J. Artola, Experiments & Plasma Operation Section, ITER Science Division

The open licence will allow a broader group of scientists to contribute to and validate the JOREK code against experiments.

 

As recently announced by the European Consortium for the Development of Fusion Energy (EUROfusion), the JOREK code is now openly accessible to the worldwide fusion scientific community at the ITER IMAS repository. JOREK is a reference code for the simulation of magneto-hydrodynamic plasma instabilities, which members of the ITER Organization have contributed to with developments.

JOREK is extensively used for modelling of plasma disruptions, which are the most intense plasma instabilities in tokamaks, and the associated thermal and electromagnetic loads on components installed inside ITER’s vacuum vessel to protect it from plasma and neutron impact (see Fig. 2). However, its most important application for ITER is the study and improvement of the efficiency of disruption mitigation. JOREK can accurately simulate the physics of the injection of shattered pellets and the resulting 3-dimensional evolution of the magnetic field, which determines the deposition of energy and particles (including runaway electrons) in the large-scale plasma disturbances that take place during disruptions.   

For more details on JOREK please consult the EUROfusion announcement. 

--Figure 1 (right). JOREK simulation of the temperature profile evolution following the injection of a shattered pellet for disruption mitigation [D. Hu et al 2024 Nucl. Fusion 64 086005]

 

Figure 2. (Left) Maximum surface temperature of the tungsten first wall in ITER (black spots correspond to locations where melting temperature is reached) and duration of the phase during which tungsten remains liquid (right) during a 15 MA unmitigated Vertical Displacement Event. The first wall surface is represented in toroidal (Φ) and poloidal (θ) coordinates, with the index referring to the numbering of the various first wall panel toroidal rows in ITER [F.J. Artola et al 2026 Nucl. Fusion 66 086036].