ERO modelling of net and gross erosion of marker samples exposed to L-mode plasmas on ASDEX Upgrade

In this paper, we report experimental and numerical investigations of gross and net erosion of gold (Au) and molybdenum (Mo), proxies for the common plasma-facing material tungsten (W), during L-mode plasma discharges in deuterium (D) in the outer strike-point region of the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. To this end, erosion profiles of different marker spots (for Au, dimensions 1 x 1 and 5 x 5 mm(2)) and marker coatings (for Mo) have been determined and modelled using the ERO code. The smaller marker spots were designed to quantify the gross-erosion rate while on the bigger markers local prompt re-deposition of Au allowed obtaining data on net erosion. The experimental results indicate relatively uniform erosion profiles across the marker spots or coatings, very little re-deposition elsewhere, and the largest erosion taking place close to the strike point. Compared to W, the markers show up to 15 times higher net erosion but no major differences in the poloidal migration lengths of Au and W can be seen. Gold thus appears to be a proper choice for studying migration of W in the divertor region. The ERO simulations with different background plasmas are able to reproduce the main features of the experimental net erosion profile of Au. Of the studied parameters, electron temperature has the strongest impact on erosion: doubling the temperature enhances erosion by a factor of 2.5-3. In contrast, for Mo, the simulated net erosion is similar to 3 times smaller than what experimental data indicate. The discrepancies can be attributed to the deviations of the background plasma profiles from the measured ones as well as to the applied models or approximations for the ion temperature, plasma potential, and sheath characteristics in ERO. In addition, the surrounding areas of the marker samples being covered with impurities and W from previous experiments may have considerably reduced the actual re-deposition of Mo. All the simulations predict a toroidal tail of re-deposited particles, downstream of the markers, but the particle density seems to be below the experimental detection threshold. The comparison between the 1 x 1 mm(2) and 5 x 5 mm(2) marker spots further reveal that re-deposition drops from >50% toPeer reviewe

Overview of the JET results in support to ITER

The 2014-2016 JET results are reviewed in the light of their significance for optimising the ITER research plan for the active and non-active operation. More than 60 h of plasma operation with ITER first wall materials successfully took place since its installation in 2011. New multi-machine scaling of the type I-ELM divertor energy flux density to ITER is supported by first principle modelling. ITER relevant disruption experiments and first principle modelling are reported with a set of three disruption mitigation valves mimicking the ITER setup. Insights of the L-H power threshold in Deuterium and Hydrogen are given, stressing the importance of the magnetic configurations and the recent measurements of fine-scale structures in the edge radial electric. Dimensionless scans of the core and pedestal confinement provide new information to elucidate the importance of the first wall material on the fusion performance. H-mode plasmas at ITER triangularity (H = 1 at beta(N) similar to 1.8 and n/n(GW) similar to 0.6) have been sustained at 2 MA during 5 s. The ITER neutronics codes have been validated on high performance experiments. Prospects for the coming D-T campaign and 14 MeV neutron calibration strategy are reviewed.Peer reviewe

Scenario development for D-T operation at JET

The JET exploitation plan foresees D-T operations in 2020 (DTE2). With respect to the first D-T campaign in 1997 (DTE1), when JET was equipped with a carbon wall, the experiments will be conducted in presence of a beryllium-tungsten ITER-like wall and will benefit from an extended and improved set of diagnostics and higher additional heating power (32 MW neutral beam injection + 8 MW ion cyclotron resonance heating). There are several challenges presented by operations with the new wall: a general deterioration of the pedestal confinement; the risk of heavy impurity accumulation in the core, which, if not controlled, can cause the radiative collapse of the discharge; the requirement to protect the divertor from excessive heat loads, which may damage it permanently. Therefore, an intense activity of scenario development has been undertaken at JET during the last three years to overcome these difficulties and prepare the plasmas needed to demonstrate stationary high fusion performance and clear alpha particle effects. The paper describes the status and main achievements of this scenario development activity, both from an operational and plasma physics point of view.Peer reviewe

Beryllium melting and erosion on the upper dump plates in JET during three ITER-like wall campaigns

Data on erosion and melting of beryllium upper limiter tiles, so-called dump plates (DP), are presented for all three campaigns in the JET tokamak with the ITER-like wall. High-resolution images of the upper wall of JET show clear signs of flash melting on the ridge of the roofshaped tiles. The melt layers move in the poloidal direction from the inboard to the outboard tile, ending on the last DP tile with an upward going waterfall-like melt structure. Melting was caused mainly by unmitigated plasma disruptions. During three ILW campaigns, around 15% of all 12376 plasma pulses were catalogued as disruptions. Thermocouple data from the upper dump plates tiles showed a reduction in energy delivered by disruptions with fewer extreme events in the third campaign, ILW-3, in comparison to ILW-1 and ILW-2. The total Be erosion assessed via precision weighing of tiles retrieved from JET during shutdowns indicated the increasing mass loss across campaigns of up to 0.6 g from a single tile. The mass of splashed melted Be on the upper walls was also estimated using the high-resolution images of wall components taken after each campaign. The results agree with the total material loss estimated by tile weighing (similar to 130 g). Morphological and structural analysis performed on Be melt layers revealed a multilayer structure of re-solidified material composed mainly of Be and BeO with some heavy metal impurities Ni, Fe, W. IBA analysis performed across the affected tile ridge in both poloidal and toroidal direction revealed a low D concentration, in the range 1-4 x 10(17) D atoms cm(-2).Peer reviewe

A machine learning approach based on generative topographic mapping for disruption prevention and avoidance at JET

The need for predictive capabilities greater than 95% with very limited false alarms are demanding requirements for reliable disruption prediction systems in tokamaks such as JET or, in the near future, ITER. The prediction of an upcoming disruption must be provided sufficiently in advance in order to apply effective disruption avoidance or mitigation actions to prevent the machine from being damaged. In this paper, following the typical machine learning workflow, a generative topographic mapping (GTM) of the operational space of JET has been built using a set of disrupted and regularly terminated discharges. In order to build the predictive model, a suitable set of dimensionless, machine-independent, physics-based features have been synthesized, which make use of 1D plasma profile information, rather than simple zero-D time series. The use of such predicting features, together with the power of the GTM in fitting the model to the data, obtains, in an unsupervised way, a 2D map of the multi-dimensional parameter space of JET, where it is possible to identify a boundary separating the region free from disruption from the disruption region. In addition to helping in operational boundaries studies, the GTM map can also be used for disruption prediction exploiting the potential of the developed GTM toolbox to monitor the discharge dynamics. Following the trajectory of a discharge on the map throughout the different regions, an alarm is triggered depending on the disruption risk of these regions. The proposed approach to predict disruptions has been evaluated on a training and an independent test set and achieves very good performance with only one tardive detection and a limited number of false detections. The warning times are suitable for avoidance purposes and, more important, the detections are consistent with physical causes and mechanisms that destabilize the plasma leading to disruptions.Peer reviewe

RF sheath modeling of experimentally observed plasma surface interactions with the JET ITER-Like Antenna

Waves in the Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) enhance local Plasma-Surface Interactions (PSI) near the wave launchers and magnetically-connected objects via Radio-Frequency (RF) sheath rectification. ITER will use 20MW of ICRF power over long pulses, questioning the long-term impact of RF-enhanced localized erosion on the lifetime of its Beryllium (Be) wall. Recent dedicated ICRF-heated L-mode discharges documented this process on JET for different types of ICRF antennas. Using visible spectroscopy in JET ICRF-heated L-mode discharges, poloidally-localized regions of enhanced (by similar to 2-4x) Be I and Be II light emission were observed on two outboard limiters magnetically connected to the bottom of the active ITER-Like Antenna (ILA). The observed RF-PSI induced by the ILA was qualitatively comparable to that induced by the JET standard, type-A2 antennas, for similar strap toroidal phasing and connection geometries. The Be II line emission was found more intense when powering the bottom half of the ILA rather than its top half. Conversely, more pronounced SOL density modifications were observed with only top array operation, on field lines connected to the top half of the ILA. So far the near-field modeling of the ILA with antenna code TOPICA (Torino Polytechnic Ion Cyclotron Antenna), using curved antenna model, was partially able to reproduce qualitatively the observed phenomena. A quantitative discrepancy persisted between the observed Be source amplification and the calculated, corresponding increases in E-// field at the magnetically connected locations to the ILA when changing from only top to only bottom half antenna operation. This paper revisits these current drive phased and half-ILA powered cases using for the new simulations flat model of the ILA and more realistic antenna feeding to calculate the E-// field maps with TOPICA code. Further, the Self-consistent Sheaths and Waves for Ion Cyclotron Heating Slow Wave (SSWICH-SW) code, which couples slow wave evanescence with DC Scrape-Off Layer (SOL) biasing, is used to estimate the poloidal distribution of rectified RF-sheath Direct Current (DC) potential V-DC in the private SOL between the ILA poloidal limiters. The approach so far was limited to correlating the observed, enhanced emission regions at the remote limiters to the antenna near-electric fields, as calculated by TOPICA. The present approach includes also a model for the rectification of these near-fields in the private SOL of the ILA. With the improved approach, when comparing only top and only bottom half antenna feeding, we obtained good qualitative correlation between all experimental measurements and the calculated local variations in the E-// field and V-DC potential.Peer reviewe

Role of the pedestal position on the pedestal performance in AUG, JET-ILW and TCV and implications for ITER

The role of the pedestal position on the pedestal performance has been investigated in AUG, JET-ILW and TCV. When the pedestal is peeling-ballooning (PB) limited, the three machines show a similar behaviour. The outward shift of the pedestal density relative to the pedestal temperature can lead to the outward shift of the pedestal pressure which, in turns, reduces the PB stability, degrades the pedestal confinement and reduces the pedestal width. Once the experimental density position is considered, the EPED model is able to correctly predict the pedestal height. An estimate of the impact of the density position on a ITER baseline scenario shows that the maximum reduction in the pedestal height is 10% while the reduction in the fusion power is between 10% and 40% depending on the assumptions for the core transport model usedIn other plasmas, where the pedestal density is shifted even more outwards relative to the pedestal temperature, the pedestal does not seem PB limited and a different behaviour is observed. The outward shift of the density is still empirically correlated with the pedestal degradation but no change in the pressure position is observed and the PB model is not able to correctly predict the pedestal height. On the other hand, the outward shift of the density leads to a significant increase of eta(e) and eta(i) (where eta(e,i) is the ratio of density to temperature scale lengths, eta(e,i) = L-eta e,L-i/L-Te,L-i) which leads to the increase of the growth rate of microinstabilities (mainly ETG and ITG) by 50%. This suggests that, in these plasmas, the increase in the turbulent transport due to the outward shift of the density might play an important role in the decrease of the pedestal performance.Peer reviewe

Efficient generation of energetic ions in multi-ion plasmas by radio-frequency heating

We describe a new technique for the efficient generation of high-energy ions with electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves in multi-ion plasmas. The discussed three-ion scenarios are especially suited for strong wave absorption by a very low number of resonant ions. To observe this effect, the plasma composition has to be properly adjusted, as prescribed by theory. We demonstrate the potential of the method on the world-largest plasma magnetic confinement device, JET (Joint European Torus, Culham, UK), and the high-magnetic-field tokamak Alcator C-Mod (Cambridge, USA). The obtained results demonstrate efficient acceleration of He-3 ions to high energies in dedicated hydrogendeuterium mixtures. Simultaneously, effective plasma heating is observed, as a result of the slowing-down of the fast He-3 ions. The developed technique is not only limited to laboratory plasmas, but can also be applied to explain observations of energetic ions in space-plasma environments, in particular, He-3-rich solar flares.Peer reviewe

Current Research into Applications of Tomography for Fusion Diagnostics

Retrieving spatial distribution of plasma emissivity from line integrated measurements on tokamaks presents a challenging task due to ill-posedness of the tomography problem and limited number of the lines of sight. Modern methods of plasma tomography therefore implement a-priori information as well as constraints, in particular some form of penalisation of complexity. In this contribution, the current tomography methods under development (Tikhonov regularisation, Bayesian methods and neural networks) are briefly explained taking into account their potential for integration into the fusion reactor diagnostics. In particular, current development of the Minimum Fisher Regularisation method is exemplified with respect to real-time reconstruction capability, combination with spectral unfolding and other prospective tasks.Peer reviewe