Expanding the parameter space of the wide-pedestal QH-mode towards ITER conditions
Not Available
Chen, Xi (ORCID:0000000287186877)↗
Engineering topics
Osborne, T. H.
Publications and source records attributed to Osborne, T. H..
Creation and sustainment of wide pedestal quiescent H-mode with zero net neutral beam torque
Recent experiments on DIII-D have shown it is possible to create and sustain wide pedestal quiescent H-mode (QH-mode) plasmas with zero net torque from neutral beam injection (NBI) for the full discharge duration. Wide pedestal QH-mode has many of the features of the previously investigated QH-mode while having the advantage of increased edge pedestal pressure and excellent energy confinement time. Both QH-mode variants operate without edge localized modes. Accordingly, these discharges demonstrate that significant input torque is not essential to the exploitation of wide pedestal QH-mode in future devices that are expected to have small or nonexistent NBI torque. In conclusion, developing operating conditions that allowed net zero torque access to wide pedestal QH-mode required implementing several techniques to avoid locked modes including minimizing intrinsic error fields, avoiding large sawteeth, and driving toroidal rotation via neoclassical toroidal viscosity.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
Improved core-edge compatibility using impurity seeding in the small angle slot (SAS) divertor at DIII-D
Impurity seeding studies in the slot divertor (SAS) at DIII-D have revealed a strong relationship between the detachment onset and pedestal characteristics with both target geometry and impurity species. N 2 seeding in the slot has led to the first simultaneous observation of detachment on the entire suite of boundary diagnostics viewing the SAS without degradation of core confinement. SOLPS-ITER simulations with D+C+N, full cross-field drifts and n-n collisions activated are performed for the first time in DIII-D to interpret the behavior. This illustrates a strong effect of divertor configuration and plasma drifts on the recycling source distribution with significant consequences on plasma flows. Flow reversal is found for both main ions and impurities affecting strongly the impurity transport and providing an explanation for the observed dependence on strike point location of the detachment onset and impurity leakage found in the experiments. Matched discharges with either nitrogen or neon injection show that while nitrogen does not significantly affect the pedestal, neon leads to increased pedestal pressure gradient and improved pedestal stability. Little nitrogen penetrates in the core, but a great amount of neon is found in the pedestal consistent with the different ionization potentials of the two impurities. This research demonstrates that neutral and impurity distributions in the divertor can be controlled through variations in strike point locations in a fixed baffle structure. Divertor geometry combined with impurity seeding enables mitigated divertor heat flux balancing core contamination and thus leading to enhanced divertor dissipation and improved core-edge compatibility which are essential for ITER and for future fusion reactors.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
First Evidence of Local E × B Drift in the Divertor Influencing the Structure and Stability of Confined Plasma near the Edge of Fusion Devices
The structure of the edge plasma in a magnetic confinement system has a strong impact on the overall plasma performance. Here we uncover for the first time a magnetic-field-direction dependent density shelf, i.e., local flattening of density radial profile near the magnetic separatrix, in high confinement plasmas with low edge collisionality in the DIII-D tokamak. The density shelf is correlated with a doubly peaked density profile near the divertor target plate, which tends to occur for operation with the ion BX∇B drift direction away from the X-point, as currently employed for DIII-D advanced tokamak scenarios. This double-peaked divertor plasma profile is connected via the EXB drifts, arising from a strong radial electric field induced by the radial electron temperature gradient near the divertor target. The drifts lead to the reversal of the poloidal flow above the divertor target, resulting in the formation of the density shelf. The edge density shelf can be also enhanced at higher heating power, preventing large, periodic bursts of the plasma, i.e. Edge-localized Modes, in the edge region, consistent with ideal magnetohydrodynamics calculations.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
H-mode pedestal improvements with neon injection in DIII-D
Improvements in the H-mode pedestal pressure and global energy confinement were determined on DIII-D with both 3 and 6 MW of neutral beam (NBI) heating with neon injection. The pedestal pressure increased, primarily associated with a significant increase in the pedestal density with a relatively smaller decrease in the pedestal temperature. At the same neon injection rate, a rapid decrease in edge localized mode (ELM) frequency and ~35% increase in plasma stored energy were observed in the 3 MW discharge, while in the 6 MW discharge, the ELM frequency was gradually decreased and the plasma stored energy gradually increased by up to 20%. The measured pedestal widths from both 3 and 6 MW discharges matched the EPED1.0 width scaling, ${\Delta _{{\psi _N}}} = 0.089\beta _{p,ped}^{1/2}$ ,data-, within 20% deviations before and after neon injection. The peeling-ballooning mode (PBM) stability analysis showed that after neon injection, the ballooning stability boundary was increased, while the peeling stability boundary only dropped once the neon level was relatively high. The ballooning stability boundary increase with neon injection is consistent with increase of the ion diamagnetic stabilization (i.e. including the contribution from carbon, neon as well as deuterium ions) which is used in the criterion to determine when the calculated linear growth rates of PBM are unstable. Consequently, the new ELITE computed PBM boundaries were more consistent with the operating points than when only deuterium was included. This in turn suggests that the impurity may help to improve pedestal pressure through affecting ion diamagnetic frequency in the pedestal region, which could positively lead to the ballooning stability boundary extension.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗