Development of Virtual KSTAR

Digital twin technologies are expanding their applications in many scientific and engineering researches. As an attempt to apply the digital twin technologies to fusion, the development of Virtual KSTAR (V-KSTAR) is reported. The graphic engine Unity® is employed for fast and interactive visualization of KSTAR main device. Based on HDF5 format, a new data framework is also developed to systematically process and integrate fusion data from experiment and simulation into V-KSTAR. It is demonstrated that V-KSTAR can visualize key experimental data such as plasma equilibrium, temperatures of plasma facing components in real time, which can be utilized for the real time monitoring of KSTAR operation and experiment. V-KSTAR can incorporate fusion simulation. To demonstrate this, three simulation codes are selected: 1) Monte-Carlo simulation code for neutral beam injection, 2) ray tracing simulation for electron cyclotron wave heating, and 3) 3D magnetic field simulation for resonant magnetic field perturbation. It is demonstrated that V-KSTAR can provide a fitting platform to perform and analyze these fusion simulations in virtualized environment.