Engineering topics

Laggner, Florian M.

Publications and source records attributed to Laggner, Florian M..

9 records

DOE OSTI2022

Reducing the L-H transition power threshold in ITER-similar-shape DIII-D hydrogen plasmas

Recent dedicated DIII-D experiments in low-torque, ITER-similar-shape (ISS) hydrogen plasmas (at a plasma current I p ~ 1.5 MA and ITER-similar edge safety factor q 95 ~ 3.6) show that the L-H transition power threshold P LH can be reduced substantially (~30%) with L-mode helium admixtures n He /n e $\leqslant$ 25%. In the ensuing H-mode, helium ion fractions n He /n H remain below 25%. H-mode normalized pressure and confinement quality are only slightly affected by helium seeding, and Z eff $\leqslant$ 2.15 (including helium and carbon content). The plasmas investigated here are electron-heat dominated, with temperatures T e (0)/T i (0) $\geqslant$ 1 and edge heat flux ratio Q e /Q i (ρ = 0.95) ~ 1.2–1.5. Without mitigation, P LH is higher by a factor of 2–3 in comparison to similar ISS deuterium plasmas. ISS hydrogen plasmas with lower plasma current I p ~ 1 MA (increased edge safety factor q 95 ~ 5.1) exhibit a substantially lower power threshold. This plasma current dependence, also observed previously on ASDEX-U and in JET, is not accounted for by the commonly used 2008 ITPA multi-machine threshold scaling, but could potentially allow H-mode access at marginal heating power during the initial plasma current ramp-up. Attempts to reduce P LH with low-field- and high-field-side hydrogen pellet injection, using 1.7 mm diameter pellets, have not demonstrated a robust threshold reduction, in contrast to successful earlier experiments with larger 2.7 mm pellets. Finally, techniques for reducing P LH are very important for ITER, in particular for accessing H-mode in hydrogen plasmas during the Pre-Fusion Power Operation-1 (PFPO-1) campaign with marginal auxiliary heating power (20–30 MW of ECH).

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Design of a Novel Variable Geometry Divertor for Tokamaks

The divertor is a key component of fusion reactors, allowing exhaust of gas, impurities, and helium ash to preserve plasma purity. The divertor geometry strongly affects plasma performance, and it is designed to be compatible with different plasma shapes in present-day fusion experiments. Here, we present a novel concept for a variable geometry divertor, in which the divertor baffle tiles are reorientable by external actuation. Implementation of this concept in a medium-sized research tokamak would uniquely provide the flexibility to tailor divertor geometry to the plasma configuration and also enable study of the effect of divertor closure on plasma performance. To ensure compatibility with typical tokamak operations, the adjustable divertor must withstand the effects of significant mechanical and thermal stresses such as MW/m 2 -scale heat fluxes and large electromagnetic fields, e.g., disruption forces. The technological solutions for actuation mechanisms, cooling system, gas baffling and plasma-facing components are assessed. A functional reduced-scale model with movable outer divertor target baffle tiles is developed and the actuation mechanism is tested.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Prediction of DIII-D Pedestal Structure from Externally Controllable Parameters

The sharp increase of pressure at the edge of a high confinement mode (H-mode) plasma, the pedestal, strongly impacts overall plasma performance. Predicting the pedestal is a necessity to control and optimize tokamak operations. An experimental data-driven machine learning (ML) approach is presented that predicts the pedestal heights and widths of electron density (ne) and electron temperature (Te) profiles as well as the separatrix ne from externally controllable parameters such as the plasma shape, heating method and power, and gas puff rate and integrated gas puff. The OMFIT framework was used with DIII-D data to efficiently, robustly, and automatically build a database of pedestal parameters to train machine learning models. Database creation was enabled by the search engine tool for DIII-D data, TokSearch, which parallelizes data fetching, enabling fast searches through basic signals of thousands of DIII-D shots and selection of relevant time intervals. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) separated the database into three clusters that represent classes of plasma shapes that are regularly used in DIII-D. The most important parameters for setting the pedestal structure were plasma current (Ip), toroidal magnetic field (Bφ), neutral beam heating power (PNBI) and shaping quantities. The Deep Jointly Informed Neural Networks (DJINN) algorithm was applied to identify suitable neural network (NN) architectures that appropriately capture the features of the pedestal database. Separate NNs were implemented for each pedestal parameter, and ensembling methods were used to improve the prediction accuracy and allowed estimation of the prediction uncertainty. The pedestal predictions of the test dataset lie within the measurement uncertainties of the pedestal parameters. The NN outperformed simple Linear Regression (LR) analysis, indicating non-linear dependencies in the pedestal structure. The presented achievements illustrate a promising path for future research, using feature extraction to infer experimental trends and thereby improve pedestal models as well as deploying NN for a fast pedestal prediction in DIII-D scenario development.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

NSTX-U theory, modeling and analysis results

Here, the mission of the low aspect ratio spherical tokamak NSTX-U is to advance the physics basis and technical solutions required for optimizing the configuration of next-step steady-state tokamak fusion devices. NSTX-U will ultimately operate at up to 2 MA of plasma current and 1 T toroidal field on axis for 5 s, and has available up to 15 MW of neutral beam injection power at different tangency radii and 6 MW of high harmonic fast wave heating. With these capabilities NSTX-U will develop the physics understanding and control tools to ramp-up and sustain high performance fully non-inductive plasmas with large bootstrap fraction and enhanced confinement enabled via the low aspect ratio, high beta configuration. With its unique capabilities, NSTX-U research also supports ITER and other critical fusion development needs. Super-Alfvénic ions in beam-heated NSTX-U plasmas access energetic particle (EP) parameter space that is relevant for both α-heated conventional and low aspect ratio burning plasmas. NSTX-U can also generate very large target heat fluxes to test conventional and innovative plasma exhaust and plasma facing component solutions. This paper summarizes recent analysis, theory and modelling progress to advance the tokamak physics basis in the areas of macrostability and 3D fields, EP stability and fast ion transport, thermal transport and pedestal structure, boundary and plasma material interaction, RF heating, scenario optimization and real-time control.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Deconvolving the roles of E × B shear and pedestal structure in the energy confinement quality of super H-mode experiements

Analysis of “super H-mode” experiments on DIII-D has put forward that high plasma toroidal rotation, not high pedestal, plays the essential role in achieving energy confinement quality H 98y2 >>1. Recently, super H-mode experiments with variable input torque have confirmed that high rotation shear discharges have very high levels of H 98y2 (>1.5), independent of the pedestal height, and that high pedestal discharges with low rotation shear have levels of H 98y2 only slightly above 1 (≤1.2). Although some increase in stored energy with higher pedestal occurs, the energy confinement quality mainly depends on the toroidal rotation shear, which varies according to different levels of injected neutral beam torque per particle. Here, quasi-linear gyrofluid modeling achieves a good match of the experiment when including the E×B shear; without including plasma rotation, the modeling predicts a confinement quality consistent with the empirical observation of H 98y2 ~1.2 at low rotation. Nonlinear gyrokinetic transport modeling shows that the effect of E×B turbulence stabilization is far larger than other mechanisms, such as the so-called hot-ion stabilization (T i /T e ) effect. Consistent with these experimental and modeling results are previous simulations of the ITER Baseline Scenario using a super H-mode pedestal solution, which showed the potential to exceed the Q=10 target if the pedestal density could be increased above the Greenwald limit. A close look at these simulations reveals that the predicted energy confinement quality is below 1 even at the highest pedestal pressure. The improvement in Q at higher pedestal density is due to the improved fusion power generation at the higher core density associated with higher pedestal density, not to an improved energy confinement quality.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Development of an integrated core–edge scenario using the super H-mode

An optimized pedestal regime called the super-H (SH) mode is leveraged to couple a fusion relevant core plasma with a high density scrape-off layer appropriate for realistic reactor power exhaust solutions. Recent DIII-D experiments have expanded the operating space of the SH regime using advanced control algorithms and investigated optimization of impurity seeding, deuterium gas puffing, and 3D magnetic perturbations. Simultaneous real-time control of the pedestal density and radiated power with in-vessel coils and nitrogen seeding enable optimal coupled divertor and pedestal conditions. Four case studies are analysed with varied levels of radiated power in the divertor volume ranging from 0 (no seeding) to 8.5 MW radiated from carbon and nitrogen emission. Plasmas with a 4.5 MW radiated power target establish a radiative mantle, leading to divertor temperatures of ~16 eV while maintaining SH-mode, and with only marginal impact on the pedestal and core performance. Increased levels of N 2 seeding with a 7.5 MW radiated power target facilitate detachment onset and divertor temperatures <5 eV, with no degradation in stored energy and the operational point remaining inside the SH-mode channel for $ > 2.5{\tau }_{\text{E}}$. Finally, a 8.5 MW radiated power target leads to partial detachment, which is so far associated with the loss of access to SH-mode pedestal conditions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Time-dependent experimental identification of inter-ELM microtearing modes in the tokamak edge on DIII-D

In a series of discharges on the DIII-D tokamak, fast vertical plasma jogs are used to induce current perturbations in the steep gradient region of the H-mode edge. These current perturbations directly influence the edge q profile, decoupling the resonant location and instability drive of pedestal-localized microtearing modes (MTMs.) By exploiting this effect, we develop and apply a new experimental technique to track the dynamical frequency evolution of MTMs in the pedestal region, providing a compelling validation of the MTM model. The frequency of potential MTMs is calculated as the Doppler-shifted electron diamagnetic frequency at rational q=m/n surfaces, showing remarkable agreement with chirped frequency behavior of n=3, 4 and 5 modes detected with fast magnetics. Data is collected throughout multiple ELM cycles in order to build robust statistics describing the time-dependent frequency evolution of MTMs, which can be explained by examining the recovery of pedestal gradients after an ELM event. MTMs have a dominant transport contribution in the electron thermal channel, so the presented results indicate that reduced models of pedestal transport must be electromagnetic in nature and constructed with accurate calculations of MTM stability; inclusion of this physics is essential for accurate predictions of the electron temperature pedestal profile. Supporting measurements of mode saturation, propagation direction and transport fingerprints are made to support the dynamic frequency determination, unambiguously and experimentally identifying MTMs in the pedestal region of DIII-D.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Prediction of DIII-D Pedestal Structure From Externally Controllable Parameters

The sharp increase of pressure at the edge of a high confinement mode (H-mode) plasma, the pedestal, strongly impacts overall plasma performance. Predicting the pedestal is a necessity to control and optimize tokamak operations. Here, an experimental data-driven machine learning (ML) approach is presented that predicts the pedestal heights and widths of electron density (n e ) and electron temperature (T e ) profiles as well as the separatrix ne from externally controllable parameters such as the plasma shape, heating method and power, and gas puff rate and integrated gas puff. The OMFIT framework was used with DIII-D data to efficiently, robustly, and automatically build a database of pedestal parameters to train machine learning models. Database creation was enabled by the search engine tool for DIII-D data, TokSearch, which parallelizes data fetching, enabling fast searches through basic signals of thousands of DIII-D shots and selection of relevant time intervals. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) separated the database into three clusters that represent classes of plasma shapes that are regularly used in DIII-D. The most important parameters for setting the pedestal structure were plasma current (I p ), toroidal magnetic field (B Φ ), neutral beam heating power (P NBI ) and shaping quantities. The Deep Jointly Informed Neural Networks (DJINN) algorithm was applied to identify suitable neural network (NN) architectures that appropriately capture the features of the pedestal database. Separate NNs were implemented for each pedestal parameter, and ensembling methods were used to improve the prediction accuracy and allowed estimation of the prediction uncertainty. The pedestal predictions of the test dataset lie within the measurement uncertainties of the pedestal parameters. The NN outperformed simple Linear Regression (LR) analysis, indicating non-linear dependencies in the pedestal structure. The presented achievements illustrate a promising path for future research, using feature extraction to infer experimental trends and thereby improve pedestal models as well as deploying NN for a fast pedestal prediction in DIII-D scenario development.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Setting the H-mode pedestal structure: variations of particle source location using gas puff and pellet fueling

Experiments in DIII-D show that a particle source location inside the top of the H-mode pedestal (pellets) maintains a higher pedestal pressure than an edge source (gas fueling) through a widening of the electron temperature pedestal with reduction of the temperature gradient. The effect of these two fueling schemes on the H-mode pedestal structure was examined in DIII-D by comparing controlled pellet-fueled and gas-fueled discharges across a fueling scan up to 40 torr 1 s –1 . High resolution electron profiles reveal that gas fueling lowers the pedestal pressure as the density profile shifts radially outwards and the separatrix density increases, while pellet fueling maintains a constant pedestal pressure. The neutral source locations from pellets and gas are determined with the PELLET and UEDGE codes, respectively, and quantify the particle source localization. Pellets provide significant ionization inside the pedestal top while gas puffing localizes ionization in the scrape-off-layer and pedestal foot, broadly consistent with the density profile structure influenced by the source. ELMs are observed to increase in frequency and reduce impurity content as fueling is increased. Stability analysis with ELITE shows that both conditions are near the type-I ELM corner of the peeling–ballooning stability diagram, which is altered significantly by the introduction of pellets. Since transport mechanisms are not observed to change substantially with particle source location, wider pedestals allow the pellet-fueled discharges to retain higher pedestal temperatures at similar pedestal densities. EPED1 is tested to capture the pedestal pressure, under-predicting the height with pellets and over-predicting the height with gas by ~15%. Overall, these results have important implications for future reactors where pellet fueling will be the primary particle source due to an opaque scrape-off-layer by showing that the neutral source location plays a role in setting the structure of the H-mode pedestal.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗