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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Development of plasma bolometers using fiber-optic temperature sensors

Measurements of radiated power in magnetically confined plasmas are important for exhaust studies in present experiments and expected to be a critical diagnostic for future fusion reactors. Resistive bolometer sensors have long been utilized in tokamaks and helical devices but suffer from electromagnetic interference (EMI). Results are shown from initial testing of a new bolometer concept based on fiber-optic temperature sensor technology. A small, 80 μm diameter, 200 μm long silicon pillar attached to the end of a single mode fiber-optic cable acts as a Fabry–Pérot cavity when broadband light, λ{sub o} ∼ 1550 nm, is transmitted along the fiber. Changes in temperature alter the optical path length of the cavity primarily through the thermo-optic effect, resulting in a shift of fringes reflected from the pillar detected using an I-MON 512 OEM spectrometer. While initially designed for use in liquids, this sensor has ideal properties for use as a plasma bolometer: a time constant, in air, of ∼150 ms, strong absorption in the spectral range of plasma emission, immunity to local EMI, and the ability to measure changes in temperature remotely. Its compact design offers unique opportunities for integration into the vacuum environment in places unsuitable for a resistive bolometer. Using a variable focus 5 mW, 405 nm, modulating laser, the signal to noise ratio versus power density of various bolometer technologies are directly compared, estimating the noise equivalent power density (NEPD). Present tests show the fiber-optic bolometer to have NEPD of 5-10 W/m{sup 2} when compared to those of the resistive bolometer which can achieve <0.5 W/m{sup 2} in the laboratory, but this can degrade to 1-2 W/m{sup 2} or worse when installed on a tokamak. Concepts are discussed to improve the signal to noise ratio of this new fiber-optic bolometer by reducing the pillar height and adding thin metallic coatings, along with improving the spectral resolution of the interrogator.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Multi-energy x-ray detector calibration for T e and impurity density (n Z ) measurements of MCF plasmas

Here, soft x-ray detection with the new "multi-energy" PILATUS3 detector systems holds promise as a magnetically confined fusion (MCF) plasma diagnostic for ITER and beyond. The measured x-ray brightness can be used to determine impurity concentrations, electron temperatures, n 2 e Z eff products, and to probe the electron energy distribution. However, in order to be effective, these detectors which are really large arrays of detectors with photon energy gating capabilities must be precisely calibrated for each pixel. The energy-dependence of the detector response of the multi-energy PILATUS3 system with 100 K pixels has been measured at Dectris Laboratory. X-rays emitted from a tube under high voltage bombard various elements such that they emit x-ray lines from Zr-Lα to Ag-Kα between 1.8 and 22.16 keV. Each pixel on the PILATUS3 can be set to a minimum energy threshold in the range from 1.6 to 25 keV. This feature allows a single detector to be sensitive to a variety of x-ray energies, so that it is possible to sample the energy distribution of the x-ray continuum and line-emission. PILATUS3 can be configured for 1D or 2D imaging of MCF plasmas with typical spatial energy and temporal resolution of 1 cm, 0.6 keV, and 5 ms, respectively.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Measurement of the deuterium Balmer series line emission on EAST

Volume recombination plays an important role towards plasma detachment for magnetically confined fusion devices. High quantum number states of the Balmer series of deuterium are used to study recombination. On EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), two visible spectroscopic measurements are applied for the upper/lower divertor with 13 channels, respectively. Both systems are coupled with Princeton Instruments ProEM EMCCD 1024B camera: one is equipped on an Acton SP2750 spectrometer, which has a high spectral resolution ∼0.0049 nm with 2400 gr/mm grating to measure the D{sub α}(H{sub α}) spectral line and with 1200 gr/mm grating to measure deuterium molecular Fulcher band emissions and another is equipped on IsoPlane SCT320 using 600 gr/mm to measure high-n Balmer series emission lines, allowing us to study volume recombination on EAST and to obtain the related line averaged plasma parameters (T{sub e}, n{sub e}) during EAST detached phases. This paper will present the details of the measurements and the characteristics of deuterium Balmer series line emissions during density ramp-up L-mode USN plasma on EAST.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2017

Investigation of the interaction between competing types of nondiffusive transport in drift wave turbulence

Radial transport in turbulence dominated tokamak plasmas has been observed to deviate from classical diffusion in certain regimes relevant for magnetic confinement fusion. These situations at least include near-marginal turbulence, where radial transport becomes superdiffusive and mediated by elongated radial structures (or avalanches) and transport across radially sheared poloidal flows, where radial subdiffusion often ensues. In this paper, the interaction between very different physical ingredients responsible for these two types of nondiffusive dynamics (namely, turbulent profile relaxation close to a local threshold and the interaction with radially sheared zonal flows) is studied in detail in the context of a simple two-dimensional electrostatic plasma fluid turbulence model based on the dissipative trapped electron mode. It is shown that, depending on the relative relevance of each of these ingredients, which can be tuned in various ways, a variety of non-diffusive radial transport behaviors can be found in the system. The results also illustrate the fact that the classical diffusion paradigm is often insufficient to describe turbulent transport in systems with self-generated flows and turbulent profile relaxations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Transport dynamics of self-consistent, near-marginal drift-wave turbulence. I. Investigation of the ability of external flows to tune the non-diffusive dynamics

The reduction of turbulent transport across sheared flow regions has been known for a long time in magnetically confined toroidal plasmas. However, details of the dynamics are still unclear, in particular, in what refers to the changes caused by the flow on the nature of radial transport itself. In Paper II, we have shown in a simplified model of drift wave turbulence that, when the background profile is allowed to evolve self-consistently with fluctuations, a variety of transport regimes ranging from superdiffusive to subdiffusive open up depending on the properties of the underlying turbulence. In this study, we show that externally applied sheared flows can, under the proper conditions, cause the transport dynamics to be diffusive or subdiffusive

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Determining the ion temperature and energy distribution in a lithium-plasma interaction test stand with a retarding field energy analyzer

The ThermoElectric-driven Liquid-metal plasma-facing Structures (TELS) experiment at the University of Illinois is a gas-puff driven, theta-pinch plasma source that is used as a test stand for off-normal plasma events incident on materials in the edge and divertor regions of a tokamak. The ion temperatures and resulting energy distributions are crucial for understanding how well a TELS pulse can simulate an extreme event in a larger, magnetic confinement device. A retarding field energy analyzer (RFEA) has been constructed for use with such a transient plasma due to its inexpensive and robust nature. The innovation surrounding the use of a control analyzer in conjunction with an actively sampling analyzer is presented and the conditions of RFEA operation are discussed, with results presented demonstrating successful performance under extreme conditions. Such extreme conditions are defined by heat fluxes on the order of 0.8 GW m -2 and on time scales of nearly 200 μs. Measurements from the RFEA indicate two primary features for a typical TELS discharge, following closely with the pre-ionizing coaxial gun discharge characteristics. For the case using the pre-ionization pulse (PiP) and the theta pinch, the measured ion signal showed an ion temperature of 23.3 ± 6.6 eV for the first peak and 17.6 ± 1.9 eV for the second peak. For the case using only the PiP, the measured signal showed an ion temperature of 7.9 ± 1.1 eV for the first peak and 6.6 ± 0.8 eV for the second peak. These differences illustrate the effectiveness of the theta pinch for imparting energy on the ions. This information also highlights the importance of TELS as being one of the few linear pulsed plasma sources whereby moderately energetic ions will strike targets without the need for sample biasing.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Efficient design and verification of diagnostics for impurity transport experiments

Recent attempts to measure impurity transport in Alcator C-Mod using an x-ray imaging crystal spectrometer and laser blow-off impurity injector have failed to yield unique reconstructions of the transport coefficient profiles. This paper presents a fast, linearized model which was constructed to estimate diagnostic requirements for impurity transport experiments. The analysis shows that the spectroscopic diagnostics on Alcator C-Mod should be capable of inferring simple profiles of impurity diffusion DZ and convection VZ accurate to better than ±10% uncertainty, suggesting that the failure to infer unique DZ and VZ from experimental data is attributable to an inadequate analysis procedure rather than the result of insufficient diagnostics. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that even a modest spatial resolution can overcome a low time resolution. This approach can be adapted to design and verify diagnostics for transport experiments on any magnetic confinement device.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Characterization of an electrothermal plasma source for fusion transient simulations

The realization of fusion energy requires materials that can withstand high heat and particle fluxes at the plasma material interface. Here in this work, an electrothermal (ET) plasma source has been designed as a transient heat flux source for a linear plasma material interaction device. An ET plasma source operates in the ablative arc regime driven by a DC capacitive discharge. The current channel width is defined by the 4 mm bore of a boron nitride liner. At large plasma currents, the arc impacts the liner wall, leading to high particle and heat fluxes to the liner material, which subsequently ablates and ionizes. This results in a high density plasma with a large unidirectional bulk flow out of the source exit. The pulse length for the ET source has been optimized using a pulse forming network to have durations of 1 and 2 ms. The peak currents and maximum source energies seen in this system are 1.9 kA and 1.2 kJ for the 2 ms pulse and 3.2 kA and 2.1 kJ for the 1 ms pulse, respectively. This work is a proof of the principal project to show that an ET source produces electron densities and heat fluxes comparable to those anticipated in transient events in large future magnetic confinement fusion devices. Heat flux, plasma temperature, and plasma density were determined for each shot using infrared imaging and optical spectroscopy techniques. This paper will discuss the assumptions, methods, and results of the experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Bistable dynamics of turbulence spreading in a corrugated temperature profile

We present a new model of turbulence spreading in magnetically confined plasma. A basic question in turbulence spreading is how to sustain finite amplitude fluctuations in a stable subcritical region, where linear dissipation of the turbulence is strong? The answer to this question relies on a consistent treatment of mesoscale temperature profile corrugation and microscale turbulence. We argue that inhomogeneous mixing of the turbulence corrugates the mean temperature profile and that the temperature corrugation then induces subcritical bifurcation of the turbulence. Thus, the system will transition from a metastable “laminar” state to an absolutely stable, excited state. Incorporating spatial coupling of the locally excited turbulent regions, a front forms. This front connects the excited and laminar states and penetrates the linear stable region efficiently. Here, we argue that such bistable turbulence spreading can explain observations of hysteresis in the intensity of L-mode core turbulence.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Particle-in-cell studies of fast-ion slowing-down rates in cool tenuous magnetized plasma

We report on 3D-3V particle-in-cell simulations of fast-ion energy-loss rates in a cold, weakly-magnetized, weakly-coupled plasma where the electron gyroradius, ρe, is comparable to or less than the Debye length, λ De , and the fast-ion velocity exceeds the electron thermal velocity, a regime in which the electron response may be impeded. These simulations use explicit algorithms, spatially resolve ρ e and λ De , and temporally resolve the electron cyclotron and plasma frequencies. For mono-energetic dilute fast ions with isotropic velocity distributions, these scaling studies of the slowing-down time, τ s , versus fast-ion charge are in agreement with unmagnetized slowing-down theory; with an applied magnetic field, no consistent anisotropy between τs in the cross-field and field-parallel directions could be resolved. Scaling the fast-ion charge is confirmed as a viable way to reduce the required computational time for each simulation. In conclusion, the implications of these slowing down processes are described for one magnetic-confinement fusion concept, the small, advanced-fuel, field-reversed configuration device.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Outlier classification using autoencoders: Application for fluctuation driven flows in fusion plasmas

Understanding the statistics of fluctuation driven flows in the boundary layer of magnetically confined plasmas is desired to accurately model the lifetime of the vacuum vessel components. Mirror Langmuir probes (MLPs) are a novel diagnostic that uniquely allow us to sample the plasma parameters on a time scale shorter than the characteristic time scale of their fluctuations. Sudden large-amplitude fluctuations in the plasma degrade the precision and accuracy of the plasma parameters reported by MLPs for cases in which the probe bias range is of insufficient amplitude. While some data samples can readily be classified as valid and invalid, we find that such a classification may be ambiguous for up to 40% of data sampled for the plasma parameters and bias voltages considered in this study. In this contribution to this work, we employ an autoencoder (AE) to learn a low-dimensional representation of valid data samples. By definition, the coordinates in this space are the features that mostly characterize valid data. Ambiguous data samples are classified in this space using standard classifiers for vectorial data. In this way, we avoid defining complicated threshold rules to identify outliers, which require strong assumptions and introduce biases in the analysis. By removing the outliers that are identified in the latent low-dimensional space of the AE, we find that the average conductive and convective radial heat fluxes are between approximately 5% and 15% lower as when removing outliers identified by threshold values. For contributions to the radial heat flux due to triple correlations, the difference is up to 40%

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2018

Propagation of input parameter uncertainties in transport models

Here, the many sources of uncertainty in validation studies of plasma turbulence in magnetically confined fusion devices are well-known. In this paper, we investigate how to efficiently transform uncertainties in experimentally derived transport model inputs into model prediction uncertainties, using the quasilinear trapped-gyro-Landau-fluid (TGLF) turbulent transport model. We use the rapidly converging and computationally inexpensive non-intrusive probabilistic collocation method (PCM) to propagate input parameter uncertainty probability distribution functions (PDFs) through TGLF, yielding PDFs of predicted transport fluxes. We observe in many cases that the flux PDFs exhibit significant non-normal features such as strong skewness, even when the input distributions were normal. To illustrate the utility of the PCM approach, we apply this methodology to transport predictions for a DIII-D ITER baseline plasma in which the mix of neutral beam injection (NBI) and electron cyclotron heating (ECH) was varied. The model predictions show clear changes in the parametric dependencies and sensitivities of the turbulence between the two heating mixes. Specifically, when only NBI heating was used, the transport fluxes responded significantly only to the ion temperature gradient scale length. However, when both NBI and ECH were applied, the electron transport channels demonstrate a strong sensitivity to the electron temperature and density gradients not observed in the NBI-only case. Additional context for the PCM approach is provided by comparing its predictions with those obtained via a local flux-matching approach. A new set of validation metrics based on the Wasserstein distance is proposed for PDF-based comparisons.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Universality of Poisson-driven plasma fluctuations in the Alcator C-Mod scrape-off layer

Large-amplitude, intermittent fluctuations are ubiquitous in the boundary region of magnetically confined plasmas and lead to detrimental plasma-wall interactions in next-generation, high duty cycle fusion power experiments. Using gas puff imaging data time series from the scrape-off layer in the Alcator C-Mod device, it is demonstrated in this work that the large-amplitude fluctuations can be described as a super-position of pulses with a fixed shape and a constant duration. By applying a new deconvolution algorithm on the data time series with a two-sided exponential pulse function, the arrival times and amplitudes of the pulses can be estimated, and the measurement time series can be reconstructed with high accuracy. The pulse amplitudes are shown to follow an exponential distribution. The waiting times between pulses are uncorrelated, their distribution has an exponential tail, and the number of arrivals is a linear function of time. This demonstrates that pulse arrivals follow a homogeneous Poisson process. Identical statistical properties apply to both ohmic and high confinement mode plasmas, clearly demonstrating the universality of the fluctuation statistics in the boundary region of Alcator C-Mod.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

Kinetic simulations of sheared flow stabilization in high-temperature Z-pinch plasmas

We present that the first fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of sheared flow stabilized Z-pinch plasmas show the suppression of the sausage instability by shear, ∂ r v z ≠ 0, with flow Mach numbers ≲1, consistent with experimental observations. Experimental investigations of sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinches demonstrated stability for 10 s of microseconds, over 1000 Alfvén radial transit times, in quasi steady-state plasmas that are an intermediate between conventional inertial and magnetic confinement systems. The observed stability coincides with the presence of radial shear in axial flow profiles with peak speeds less than Mach 1, and experiments are underway to validate scaling this design to fusion conditions. The experimentally observed stability agrees with models of m = 1 kink mode suppression by sheared flows, but existing models of the m = 0 sausage mode underestimate the efficacy of sheared flow stabilization. These models rely on fluid approximations and find that stabilization requires flows ranging from Mach 1.7 to 4.3, and in some cases, stabilization is not reproduced in the models. This is faster than the measured flows in long-lived plasmas and would necessitate substantial energy convection out of the Z-pinch and the need to drive and sustain supersonic flows in future devices. The MHD models typically used in the literature are invalid in the high-temperature, high-current environments desirable for many Z-pinch applications, and they ignore large Larmor radius effects and viscous dissipation which are known to impact Z-pinch stability. PIC simulations can capture all these effects as well as kinetic instabilities that could influence the performance of high-temperature sheared flow stabilized Z-pinch plasmas. The PIC simulations presented here show the suppression and damping of m = 0 modes by sheared flows ∂ r v z = 0.75v A /r 0 with flow Mach numbers ≲1. Lastlyl, equivalent stability occurs under plasma conditions ranging from the limits of present-day experimental capabilities to the projected conditions of a sheared flow stabilized Z-pinch reactor.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Measurement of the energy distribution of electrons escaping confinement from an electron cyclotron resonance ion source

Production of high charge state ions in electron cyclotron resonance ion sources (ECRISs) is dependent on the electron energy distribution (EED) within the source plasma. In order to better understand the EED, a measurement of electrons escaping axially from an ECRIS device has been performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Electrons were measured escaping from the Superconducting Source for Ions, driven at 18 GHz. Dependencies of the observed EED on the confining magnetic field strength and injected microwave power are reported. This paper focuses on large peaks of electrons in the 400–1200 keV energy range. Measurements of the axial bremsstrahlung spectrum have been simultaneously carried out to provide a direct comparison between both techniques. A comparison between the energy associated with the peak of the electron distribution and the spectral temperature of the bremsstrahlung distribution is shown.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

First implementation of gyrokinetic exact linearized Landau collision operator and comparison with models

Gyrokinetic simulations are fundamental to understanding and predicting turbulent transport in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Previous simulations have used model collision operators with approximate field-particle terms of unknown accuracy and/or have neglected collisional finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects. We have implemented the linearized Fokker–Planck collision operator with exact field-particle terms and full FLR effects in a gyrokinetic code (GENE). The new operator, referred to as “exact” in this paper, allows the accuracy of model collision operators to be assessed. The conservative Landau form is implemented because its symmetry underlies the conservation laws and the H-theorem, and enables numerical methods to preserve this conservation, independent of resolution. The implementation utilizes the finite-volume method recently employed to discretize the Sugama collision model in GENE, allowing direct comparison between the two operators. Results show that the Sugama model appears accurate for the growth rates of trapped electron modes (TEMs) driven only by density gradients, but appreciably underestimates the growth rates as the collisionality and electron temperature gradient increase. The TEM turbulent fluxes near the nonlinear threshold using the exact operator are similar to the Sugama model for the n e = d ln T e /d ln n e = 0 case, but substantially larger than the Sugama model for the n e = 1 case. The FLR effects reduce the growth rates increasingly with wavenumber deepening a “valley” at the intermediate binormal wavenumber as the unstable mode extends from the TEM regime to the electron temperature gradient instability regime. Application to the Hinton–Rosenbluth problem shows that zonal flows decay faster as the radial wavenumber increases and the exact operator yields weaker decay rates.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Response of a charged particle in contact with a chaotic thermostat to an oscillating electric field

A numerical investigation is made of the response of a thermalized charge in contact with a chaotic thermostat to an externally applied, oscillating electric field, with and without a confining magnetic field. This study is based on the recent theoretical development of a chaotic thermostat [G. J. Morales, Phys. Rev. E 99, 062218 (2019)] for which the static properties of a thermalized charge (spatial diffusion and mobilities) were previously established. It is found here that in the unmagnetized case, to extract significant power from the oscillating electric field requires that the oscillatory velocity be larger than the thermal velocity. The spatial diffusion caused by the self-consistent, chaotic fluctuations is shown to be reduced, and even suppressed, by the coherent oscillations. The frequency-dependent mobilities, including cyclotron resonance, are determined, and the nonlinear modifications produced by large electric fields are explored. The value of the mobilities and the modifications to the diffusion coefficient exhibit non-monotonic dependencies on the control parameters.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

A next generation ultra short pulse reflectometry (USPR) diagnostic

Ultrashort Pulse Reflectometry (USPR) is a plasma diagnostic technique involving the propagation and reflection of ultrashort duration (~few ns) chirps. The reflected packets pass through a multichannel filter with time-of-flight measurements performed on each of the filtered packets. A next generation USPR system is under development, spanning 28–75 GHz, for use on compact, short duration, magnetically confined fusion devices. This system presents a dramatic increase in performance compared with an earlier USPR system employed on the LLNL Sustained Spheromak Physics Experiment device more than a decade ago. The new system replaces upconverting mixers with higher power active multiplier chains to generate mm-wave transmitter chirps, with custom time-of-flight electronics reducing the time per measurement by a factor of 3X. Finally, the system is equipped with a field programmable gate array for data acquisition and analysis.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗