1,090 research outputs found
Understanding the effect resonant magnetic perturbations have on ELMs
All current estimations of the energy released by type I ELMs indicate that,
in order to ensure an adequate lifetime of the divertor targets on ITER, a
mechanism is required to decrease the amount of energy released by an ELM, or
to eliminate ELMs altogether. One such amelioration mechanism relies on
perturbing the magnetic field in the edge plasma region, either leading to more
frequent, smaller ELMs (ELM mitigation) or ELM suppression. This technique of
Resonant Magnetic Perturbations (RMPs) has been employed to suppress type I
ELMs at high collisionality/density on DIII-D, ASDEX Upgrade, KSTAR and JET and
at low collisionality on DIII-D. At ITER-like collisionality the RMPs enhance
the transport of particles or energy and keep the edge pressure gradient below
the 2D linear ideal MHD critical value that would trigger an ELM, whereas at
high collisionality/density the type I ELMs are replaced by small type II ELMs.
Although ELM suppression only occurs within limitied operational ranges, ELM
mitigation is much more easily achieved. The exact parameters that determine
the onset of ELM suppression are unknown but in all cases the magnetic
perturbations produce 3D distortions to the plasma and enhanced particle
transport. The incorporation of these 3D effects in codes will be essential in
order to make quantitative predictions for future devices.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figure
Overview of progress in European medium sized tokamaks towards an integrated plasma-edge/wall solution
Integrating the plasma core performance with an edge and scrape-off layer (SOL) that leads
to tolerable heat and particle loads on the wall is a major challenge. The new European
medium size tokamak task force (EU-MST) coordinates research on ASDEX Upgrade
(AUG), MAST and TCV. This multi-machine approach within EU-MST, covering a wide
parameter range, is instrumental to progress in the field, as ITER and DEMO core/pedestal
and SOL parameters are not achievable simultaneously in present day devices. A two prong
approach is adopted. On the one hand, scenarios with tolerable transient heat and particle
loads, including active edge localised mode (ELM) control are developed. On the other hand,
divertor solutions including advanced magnetic configurations are studied. Considerable
progress has been made on both approaches, in particular in the fields of: ELM control with
resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP), small ELM regimes, detachment onset and control,
as well as filamentary scrape-off-layer transport. For example full ELM suppression has now
been achieved on AUG at low collisionality with n = 2 RMP maintaining good confinement
HH(98,y2) 0.95. Advances have been made with respect to detachment onset and control.
Studies in advanced divertor configurations (Snowflake, Super-X and X-point target divertor)
shed new light on SOL physics. Cross field filamentary transport has been characterised in a
wide parameter regime on AUG, MAST and TCV progressing the theoretical and experimental
understanding crucial for predicting first wall loads in ITER and DEMO. Conditions in the
SOL also play a crucial role for ELM stability and access to small ELM regimes.European Commission (EUROfusion 633053
Recent ASDEX Upgrade research in support of ITER and DEMO
Recent experiments on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak aim at improving the physics base for ITER and DEMO to aid the machine
design and prepare efficient operation. Type I edge localized mode (ELM) mitigation using resonant magnetic perturbations
(RMPs) has been shown at low pedestal collisionality (
ν
∗
ped
<
0
.
4
)
. In contrast to the previous high
ν
∗
regime, suppression only
occurs in a narrow RMP spectral window, indicating a resonant process, and a concomitant confinement drop is observed due
to a reduction of pedestal top density and electron temperature. Strong evidence is found for the ion heat flux to be the decisive
element for the L–H power threshold. A physics based scaling of the density at which the minimum
P
LH
occurs indicates that
ITER could take advantage of it to initiate H-mode at lower density than that of the final
Q
=
10 operational point. Core density
fluctuation measurements resolved in radius and wave number show that an increase of
R/L
T
e
introduced by off-axis electron
cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) mainly increases the large scale fluctuations. The radial variation of the fluctuation level
is in agreement with simulations using the GENE code. Fast particles are shown to undergo classical slowing down in the
absence of large scale magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) events and for low heating power, but show signs of anomalous radial
redistribution at large heating power, consistent with a broadened off-axis neutral beam current drive current profile under these
conditions. Neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) suppression experiments using electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) with
feedback controlled deposition have allowed to test several control strategies for ITER, including automated control of (3,2) and
(2,1) NTMs during a single discharge. Disruption mitigation studies using massive gas injection (MGI) can show an increased
fuelling efficiency with high field side injection, but a saturation of the fuelling efficiency is observed at high injected mass as
needed for runaway electron suppression. Large locked modes can significantly decrease the fuelling efficiency and increase
the asymmetry of radiated power during MGI mitigation. Concerning power exhaust, the partially detached ITER divertor
scenario has been demonstrated at
P
sep
/R
=
10 MW m
−
1
in ASDEX Upgrade, with a peak time averaged target load around
5MWm
−
2
, well consistent with the component limits for ITER. Developing this towards DEMO, full detachment was achieved
at
P
sep
/R
=
7MWm
−
1
and stationary discharges with core radiation fraction of the order of DEMO requirements (70% instead
of the 30% needed for ITER) were demonstrated. Finally, it remains difficult to establish the standard ITER
Q
=
10 scenario at
low
q
95
=
3 in the all-tungsten (all-W) ASDEX Upgrade due to the observed poor confinement at low
β
N
. This is mainly due to
a degraded pedestal performance and hence investigations at shifting the operational point to higher
β
N
by lowering the current
have been started. At higher
q
95
, pedestal performance can be recovered by seeding N
2
as well as CD
4
, which is interpreted as
improved pedestal stability due to the decrease of bootstrap current with increasing
Z
eff
. Concerning advanced scenarios, the
upgrade of ECRH power has allowed experiments with central ctr-ECCD to modify the
q
-profile in improved H-mode scenarios,
showing an increase in confinement at still good MHD stability with flat elevated
q
-profiles at values between 1.5 and 2.European Commission (EUROfusion 633053
Dimensionless size scaling of intrinsic rotation in DIII-D
A dimensionless empirical scaling for intrinsic toroidal rotation is given: M-A similar to beta(N)rho*, where M-A is the toroidal velocity divided by the Alfven velocity, beta(N) is the usual normalized beta value, and rho* is the ion gyroradius divided by the minor radius. This scaling describes well experimental data from DIII-D and also some published data from C-Mod and JET. The velocity used in this scaling is in an outer location in minor radius, outside of the interior core and inside of the large gradient edge region in H-mode conditions. This scaling establishes the basic magnitude of the intrinsic toroidal rotation, and its relation to the rich variety of rotation profiles that can be realized for intrinsic conditions is discussed. This scaling has some similarities to existing dimensioned scalings, both the Rice scaling [J. E. Rice et al., Phys. Plasmas 7, 1825 (2000)] and the scaling of Parra et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 095001 (2012)]. These relationships are described. Published by AIP Publishing
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