Vessel & Structural-Health Telemetry

Strain, temperature, and vibration telemetry across the CrMoNbV vessel and carbon-fiber cocoon feed continuous structural-health monitoring.

Watching the structure

The machines are built around a CrMoNbV vessel wrapped in a carbon-fiber cocoon that carries mechanical loads. Structural-health monitoring (SHM) instruments this structure with strain gauges, thermocouples, and vibration sensors, and the fabric turns their telemetry into features that track the mechanical state over a shot and over the machine's life.

What SHM watches

• Strain distribution across the vessel and cocoon against modeled load envelopes.
• Temperature gradients that drive thermal stress.
• Vibration signatures that reveal loosening, cracking, or resonance.
• Cumulative neutron fluence effects on material properties (breeder 14 MeV field).

From telemetry to lifetime

SHM is both real-time and cumulative. In real time it feeds precursor features and, at hard limits, the L1 autonomous failsafe. Cumulatively, it tracks fatigue and neutron-induced degradation retained in the archive, so the twin's Thermomechanics module and the maintenance copilot can reason about remaining life — an operational assessment, never an economic one.

Coupled to magnets and thermal

Vessel strain is not independent of the magnets: the ICE-PISTON preload and the electromagnetic loads at 16.84 T (breeder) or 26.49 T (burner plugs) transmit into the structure. The fabric analyzes vessel SHM together with magnet strain deltas and divertor thermal telemetry to form one mechanical picture. These are design and simulation specifications for machines not yet built.