Implications of uncertainties on European DEMO design

During the pre-conceptual design phase of fusion devices such as the European demonstration fusion power plant (DEMO), systems codes provide a fast evaluation of optimal design points and highlight high impact areas. However, determining or evaluating a design point at such an early stage comes with uncertainties in many of the design parameters. These uncertainties are both associated with the physics as well as the engineering basis of the European DEMO design. The work applies an uncertainty quantification analysis to the 2017 pulsed European DEMO design using the PROCESS systems code. It assumes that DEMO will be built as suggested by the baseline and explores what implications the currently known physics and engineering uncertainties have on the expected performance parameters (net electric output and pulse length), while optimising the fusion gain Q. A more detailed single parameter analysis clearly identifies high impact parameters. This confirms previous investigations as well as revealing new areas that warrant deeper investigation in particular in the technology area.