Fabio Subba

Associate Professor
Department of Energy (DENERG)

  • Vice Coordinator Collegio di Ingegneria Energetica

Profile

Research interests

Plasma physics, nuclear engineering, nuclear fusion, power exhaust

Scientific branch

ING-IND/19 - NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
(Area 0009 - Industrial and information engineering)

Research topics

  • Study of Edge Plasma Physics in Tokamaks, focusing on the Power Exhaust and Pumping problems in the next generation of experiments. With the development of the next generation of Tokamak machines, the power to be handled by solid components will reach unprecedented levels. Lacking of an efficient design, the steady-state heat flux density to exhaust could reach values of several tens (or hundreds) of MW/m2, similar to the values characteristic of the sun surface. In the occurrence of incidental conditions (e.g. disruptions) the above value could temporarily increase by a few orders of magnitude, although for time durations limited to a few milli-seconds. The international fusion community is producing a massive effort to develop an effective design of the divertor, which is the Tokamak component devoted to receive the steady-state fluxes. Moreover, it is mandatory to protect also the remaining part of the wall from the transient loads, without compromising its capacity to allow an efficient transmission of the neutronic flux. Should the wall impede an efficient neutron transmission from the central reactor region to the blanket, the processes leading to Tritium production could be damaged. With a too low Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR) the fuel cycle could not be closed. A comprehensive approach to the problem implies both studies of Plasma Physics (which is my main scientific interest) and material science. On this, I cooperate actively with the major institutions active in Italy (the DTT consortium, currently building the next italian experimental reactor in Frascati), in Europe (e.g. EUROFusion, which is designing the DEMO reactor. It is thought to produce electricity in the second half of this century) and some private companies (Eni in Italy, the Commonwealth Fusion System (CFS) in US, Tokamak Energy (TE) in UK)). In particular, I am active since several years to produce numerical simulations of several divertor configurations for different Tokamaks. Also, I work on the study of disruption phenomena, with focus on developing proper avoidance and mitigation strategies. Since 2015, I had supervised about ten MSc and several PhD thesis projects on the subject.

Skills

ERC sectors

PE8_5 - Fluid mechanics, hydraulic-, turbo-, and piston engines
PE2_5 - Gas and plasma physics
PE2_14 - Thermodynamics

SDG

Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy
Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Open badges

Teaching

Collegi of the PhD programmes

  • ENERGETICA, 2022/2023 (39. ciclo)
    Politecnico di TORINO
  • ENERGETICA, 2021/2022 (38. ciclo)
    Politecnico di TORINO
  • ENERGETICA, 2020/2021 (37. ciclo)
    Politecnico di TORINO
  • ENERGETICA, 2019/2020 (36. ciclo)
    Politecnico di TORINO
  • ENERGETICA, 2018/2019 (35. ciclo)
    Politecnico di TORINO
  • ENERGIA E AMBIENTE, 2017/2018 (34. ciclo)
    Università degli Studi di ROMA "La Sapienza"
MostraNascondi collegi passati

Collegi of the degree programmes

Teachings

Master of Science

MostraNascondi A.A. passati

Bachelor of Science

MostraNascondi A.A. passati

Research

Research groups

Research projects

Projects funded by competitive calls

Supervised PhD students

Publications

Latest publications View all publications in Porto@Iris