Engineering topics

Gohil, P

Publications and source records attributed to Gohil, P.

5 records

DOE OSTI2011

Isotope mass and charge effects in tokamak plasmas

The effect of primary ion species of differing charge and mass - specifically, deuterium, hydrogen, and helium - on instabilities and transport is studied in DIII-D plasmas through gyrokinetic simulations with gyro [J. Candy and E. Belli, General Atomics Technical Report No. GA-A26818, 2010]. In linear simulations under imposed similarity of the profiles, there is an isomorphism between the linear growth rates of hydrogen isotopes, but the growth rates are higher for Z > 1 main ions due to the appearance of the charge in the Poisson equation. On ion scales the most significant effect of the different electron-to-ion mass ratio appears through collisions stabilizing trapped electron modes. In nonlinear simulations, significant favorable deviations from pure gyro-Bohm scaling are found due to electron-to-ion mass ratio effects and collisions. The presence of any non-trace impurity species cannot be neglected in a comprehensive simulation of the transport; including carbon impurity in the simulations caused a dramatic reduction of energy fluxes. The transport in the analyzed deuterium and helium discharges could be well reproduced in gyrokinetic and gyrofluid simulations while the significant hydrogen discrepancy is the subject of ongoing investigation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2011

L-H transition studies on DIII-D to determine H-mode access for operational scenarios in ITER

A comprehensive set of L-H transition experiments has been performed on DIII-D to determine the requirements for access to H-mode plasmas in ITER's first (non-nuclear) operational phase with H and He plasmas and the second (activated) operational phase with D plasmas. The H-mode power threshold, P(TH), was evaluated for different operational configurations and auxiliary heating methods for the different main ion species. Helium plasmas have significantly higher P(TH) than deuterium plasmas at low densities for all heating schemes, but similar P(TH) as deuterium plasmas at high densities except for H-neutral beam injection-heated discharges, which are still higher. Changes in P(TH) are observed when helium concentration levels in deuterium plasmas exceed 40%. There is a strong dependence of P(TH) on the magnetic geometry in the vicinity of the divertor. The trend of decreasing P(TH) with decreasing X-point height is observed for all of the main ion species irrespective of the heating method, which appears to indicate that there is a common physics process behind this effect for all of the ion species. Helium and deuterium plasmas exhibit a significant increase in P(TH) for strong resonant magnetic perturbations. The application of a local magnetic ripple of 3% from test blanket module mock-up coils did not change P(TH) in deuterium plasmas.

Gohil, P↗

DOE OSTI2011

ITER Test Blanket Module Error Field Simulation Experiments at DIII-D

Experiments at DIII-D investigated the effects of magnetic error fields similar to those expected from proposed ITER test blanket modules (TBMs) containing ferromagnetic material. Studied were effects on: plasma rotation and locking, confinement, L-H transition, the H-mode pedestal, edge localized modes (ELMs) and ELM suppression by resonant magnetic perturbations, energetic particle losses, and more. The experiments used a purpose-built three-coil mock-up of two magnetized ITER TBMs in one ITER equatorial port. The largest effect was a reduction in plasma toroidal rotation velocity v across the entire radial profile by as much as Delta upsilon/upsilon similar to 60% via non-resonant braking. Changes to global Delta n/n, Delta beta/beta and Delta H(98)/H(98) were similar to 3 times smaller. These effects are stronger at higher beta. Other effects were smaller. The TBM field increased sensitivity to locking by an applied known n = 1 test field in both L-and H-mode plasmas. Locked mode tolerance was completely restored in L-mode by re-adjusting the DIII-D n = 1 error field compensation system. Numerical modelling by IPEC reproduces the rotation braking and locking semi-quantitatively, and identifies plasma amplification of a few n = 1 Fourier harmonics as the main cause of braking. IPEC predicts that TBM braking in H-mode may be reduced by n = 1 control. Although extrapolation from DIII-D to ITER is still an open issue, these experiments suggest that a TBM-like error field will produce only a few potentially troublesome problems, and that they might be made acceptably small.

Schaffer, M J↗

DOE OSTI2011

Characteristics of the First H-mode Discharges in KSTAR

Typical ELMy H-mode discharges have been obtained in the KSTAR tokamak with the combined auxiliary heating of neutral beam injection (NBI) and electron cyclotron resonant heating (ECRH). The minimum external heating power required for the L-H transition is about 0.9MW for a line-averaged density of similar to 2.0 x 10(19) m(-3). There is a clear indication of the increase in the L-H threshold power with decreasing density for densities lower than similar to 2 x 10(19) m(-3). The L-H transitions typically occurred shortly after the beginning of plasma current flattop (I(p) = 0.6 MA) period and after the fast shaping to a highly elongated double-null divertor configuration. The maximum heating power available was marginal for the L-H transition, which is also implied by the relatively slow transition time (>10 ms) and the synchronization of the transition with large sawtooth crashes. The initial analysis of thermal energy confinement time (tau(E)) indicates that tau(E) is higher than the prediction of multi-machine scaling laws by 10-20%. A clear increase in electron and ion temperature in the pedestal is observed in the H-mode phase but the core temperature does not change significantly. On the other hand, the toroidal rotation velocity increased over the whole radial range in the H-mode phase. The measured ELM frequency was around 10-30 Hz for the large ELM bursts and 50-100 Hz for the smaller ones. In addition, very small and high frequency (200-300 Hz) ELMs appeared between large ELM spikes when the ECRH is added to the NBI-heated H-mode plasmas. The drop of total stored energy during a large ELM is up to 5% in most cases.

Yoon, S W↗

DOE OSTI2011

Toroidally Resolved Structure of Divertor Heat Flux in RMP H-mode Discharges on DIII-D

As shown on DIII-D edge localized modes (ELMs) can be either completely eliminated or mitigated with resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) fields. Two infrared cameras, separated 105 degrees toroidally, were used to make simultaneous measurements of ELM heat loads with high frame rates. Without the RMP fields ELMs display a variety of different heat load dynamics and a range of toroidal variability that is characteristic of their 3D structure. Comparing radial averages there is no asymmetry between two toroidal locations. With RMP-mitigated ELMs, the variability in the radially averaged power loads is significantly reduced and toroidal asymmetries in power loads are introduced. In addition to RMP ELM suppression scenarios an RMP scenario with only very small ELMs and very good confinement has been achieved.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗