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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 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Large-volume flux closure during plasmoid-mediated reconnection in coaxial helicity injection

A large-volume flux closure during transient coaxial helicity injection (CHI) in NSTX-U is demonstrated through resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations. Several major improvements, including the improved positioning of the divertor poloidal field coils, are projected to improve the CHI start-up phase in NSTX-U. Simulations in the NSTX-U configuration with constant in time coil currents show that with strong flux shaping the injected open field lines (injector flux) rapidly reconnect and form large volume of closed flux surfaces. This is achieved by driving parallel current in the injector flux coil and oppositely directed currents in the flux shaping coils to form a narrow injector flux footprint and push the injector flux into the vessel. As the helicity and plasma are injected into the device, the oppositely directed field lines in the injector region are forced to reconnect through a local Sweet–Parker type reconnection, or to spontaneously reconnect when the elongated current sheet becomes MHD unstable to form plasmoids. In these simulations for the first time, it is found that the closed flux is over 70% of the initial injector flux used to initiate the discharge. These results could work well for the application of transient CHI in devices that employ super conducting coils to generate and sustain the plasma equilibrium.

Current Drive↗
DOE OSTI2017

Multi-species impurity granule injection and mass deposition projections in NSTX-U discharges

Here, by employing a neutral gas shielding (NGS) model to characterize impurity granule injection, the ablation rates for three different species of granule: lithium, boron, and carbon, are determined. Utilizing the duration of ablation events recorded on experiments performed at DIII-D to calibrate the NGS model, we quantify the ablation rate with respect to the plasma density profile. The species-specific granule shielding constant is then used to model granule ablation within NSTX-U discharges. Simulations of 300, 500 and 700 micron diameter granules injected at 50 m s –1 are presented for NSTX-U L-mode type plasmas, as well as H-mode discharges with low natural ELM frequency. Additionally, ablation calculations of 500 micron granules of each species are presented at velocities ranging from 50–150 m s –1 . In H-mode discharges these simulations show that the majority of the injected granule is ablated within or just past the edge steep gradient region. At this radial position, the perturbation to the background plasma generated by the ablating granule can lead to conditions advantageous for the rapid triggering of ELM crashes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Specific recommendations for accurate and direct use of PET-CT in PET guided radiotherapy for head and neck sites

Purpose: To provide specific experience-based guidance and recommendations for centers wishing to develop, validate, and implement an accurate and efficient process for directly using positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) for the radiotherapy planning of head and neck cancer patients. Methods: A PET-CT system was modified with hard-top couch, external lasers and radiotherapy immobilization and indexing devices and was subject to a commissioning and quality assurance program. PET-CT imaging protocols were developed specifically for radiotherapy planning and the image quality and pathway tested using phantoms and five patients recruited into an in-house study. Security and accuracy of data transfer was tested throughout the whole data pathway. The patient pathway was fully established and tested ready for implementation in a PET-guided dose-escalation trial for head and neck cancer patients. Results: Couch deflection was greater than for departmental CT simulator machines. An area of high attenuation in the couch generated image artifacts and adjustments were made accordingly. Using newly developed protocols CT image quality was suitable to maintain delineation and treatment accuracy. Upon transfer of data to the treatment planning system a half pixel offset between PET and CT was observed and corrected. By taking this into account, PET to CT alignment accuracy was maintained below 1 mm in all systems in the data pathway. Transfer of structures delineated in the PET fusion software to the radiotherapy treatment planning system was validated. Conclusions: A method to perform direct PET-guided radiotherapy planning was successfully validated and specific recommendations were developed to assist other centers. Of major concern is ensuring that the quality of PET and CT data is appropriate for radiotherapy treatment planning and on-treatment verification. Couch movements can be compromised, bore-size can be a limitation for certain immobilization techniques, laser positioning may affect setup accuracy and couch deflection may be greater than scanners dedicated to radiotherapy. The full set of departmental commissioning and routine quality assurance tests applied to radiotherapy CT simulators must be carried out on the PET-CT scanner. CT image quality must be optimized for radiotherapy planning whilst understanding that the appearance will differ between scanners and may affect delineation. PET-CT quality assurance schedules will need to be added to and modified to incorporate radiotherapy quality assurance. Methods of working for radiotherapy and PET staff will change to take into account considerations of both parties. PET to CT alignment must be subject to quality control on a loaded and unloaded couch preferably using a suitable emission phantom, and tested throughout the whole data pathway. Data integrity must be tested throughout the whole pathway and a system included to verify that delineated structures are transferred correctly. Excellent multidisciplinary team communication and working is vital, and key staff members on both sides should be specifically dedicated to the project. Patient pathway should be clearly devised to optimize patient care and the resources of all departments. Recruitment of a cohort of patients into a methodology study is valuable to test the quality assurance methods and pathway.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2017

Multi-species impurity granule injection and mass deposition projections in NSTX-U discharges Authors

By employing a neutral gas shielding (NGS) model to characterize impurity granule injection the pedestal atomic deposition for three different species of granule: lithium, boron, and carbon are determined. Utilizing the duration of ablation events recorded on experiments performed at DIII-D to calibrate the NGS model we are able to quantify the ablation rate and mass deposition location with respect to the plasma density profile. The species specific granule shielding constant is then used to model granule ablation within NSTX-U discharges. Simulations of 300, 500 and 700 micron diameter granules injected at 50 m/sec are presented for NSTX-U L-mode type plasmas as well as H-mode discharges with low natural ELM frequencies. Additionally, ablation calculations of 500 micron granules of each species are presented at velocities ranging from 50 - 150 m/sec. In H-mode type discharges these simulations show that the majority of the injected granule is ablated within or just past the steep gradient region of the discharge. At this radial position, the perturbation to the background plasma generated by the ablating granule can lead to conditions advantageous for the rapid triggering of an ELM crash event.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

NSTXU Diagnostic Disruption Dynamic Loading Represented by Response Spectra

This article presents the results of transient dynamic simulations of loads due to disruption eddy currents on the NSTXU vacuum vessel. Dynamic loading at diagnostic mounting locations is expressed as response spectra derived from the time history results of the dynamic structural simulations of a variety of disruption scenarios. The disruption simulations draw on a history of the project assessments of worst case disruptions for specific components. Major efforts to assess disruption loading have included the vacuum vessel which is the major structural support for the machine, as well as the passive plates (PPs), high harmonic fast wave (HHFW) antenna, and centerstack casing. Each one of these efforts included transient electromagnetic simulations producing time-dependent eddy current Lorentz loads (and in some cases halo loads) which then were applied to time-dependent structural dynamic analyses intended to obtain the proper dynamic amplification factors. In some instances, the EM model and structural model were identical allowing direct transfer of EM forces to the structural model. In other cases, the EM and structural model were not identical and the vector potential (VP) transfer method was used. The results files from these analyses were available (or re-run) to post process in ANSYS Classic time history postprocessor. In conclusion, the ANSYS command is used to create response spectra from time history data at desired points on the vessel.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Microphysics Studies of Hohlraum Dynamics (LDRD 17-ERD-060 Final Report)

The goal of this project was demonstrate the feasibility and utility of modeling the effects of kinetic physics in gas-filled hohlraums using high-fidelity simulation tools. We have successfully achieved this goal. In our work, we have found that hybrid particle-in-cell simulations (Thoma et al. 2017, Higginson et al. 2019a) utilizing quasi-neutral, fluid electrons and kinetic ions are powerful tools to understand the kinetic physics of interpenetration and mix relevant to low-gas-fill (near-vacuum) hohlraums. We have benchmarked the code, Chicago, against OMEGA laser experiments designed to mimic conditions found in hohlraums; the code was able to reproduce data from x-ray imaging and Thomson Spectra resolved over both time and space. The experiments highlighted kinetic-ion effects such increased penetration depth that were only able to be resolved with a kinetic model. We have run preliminary simulations with Chicago of full-scale hohlraum experiments that include laser raytracing, equation-of-state and ionization, radiation transport, and accurate experimental geometries. Continuation of this work will predictive hohlraum models at low-gas-fill and identify the better regimes of hohlraum design with the potential for improved coupling and capsule symmetry.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Final technical report

This final report covers the final year of the project. Reports from previous years were included in the group report for that year. The objective of this part of the project was to compare results from two large-scale, nonlinear plasma simulation codes based on magnetohydrodynamics, M3D and M3D-C1, for plasma edge instabilities. This is a difficult undertaking and the comparison was only partially successful because, while the MHD equations are standard, there are a number of valid MHD models of the plasma dissipation that make different approximations to their physics and the numerical implementation of a given model can be quite different depending on the way that the rest of the equations are solved. Large differences arise, and have major effects on the predicted plasma behavior, in the case of the greatest interest to this project, the plasma edge region under conditions where the plasma edge instabilities are strongest and the background plasma changes abruptly from interior hot, dense conditions to an unconfined, cool, diffuse plasma outside the magnetic boundary surface. Experimental observations only partially measure the background plasma and there are many non-MHD processes that can have important effects (studied in the rest of the project). Comparisons for edge instabilities at very small amplitude, the so-called linear modes, had showed good agreement for a few interior plasma instabilities, but strong differences between the default models for the plasma edge.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

A physics-constrained deep learning treatment of runaway electron dynamics

An adjoint formulation leveraging a physics-informed neural network (PINN) is employed to advance the density moment of a runaway electron (RE) distribution forward in time. A distinguishing feature of this approach is that once the adjoint problem is solved, its solution can be used to project the RE density forward in time for an arbitrary initial momentum space distribution of REs. Furthermore, by employing a PINN, a parametric solution to the adjoint problem can be learned. Thus, once trained, this adjoint-deep learning framework is able to efficiently project the RE density forward in time across various plasma conditions while still including a fully kinetic description of RE dynamics. As an example application, the temporal evolution of the density of primary electrons is studied, with particular emphasis on evaluating the decay of a RE population when below threshold. Predictions from the adjoint-deep learning framework are found to be in good agreement with a traditional relativistic electron Fokker–Planck solver, for several distinct initial conditions, and across an array of physics parameters. Once trained, the PINN thus provides a means of generating RE density time histories with exceptionally low online execution time.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Final Report for "Tech-X Corporation work for the SciDAC Center for Simulation of RF Wave Interactions with Magnetohydrodynamics (SWIM)"

Work carried out by Tech-X Corporation for the DoE SciDAC Center for Simulation of RF Wave Interactions with Magnetohydrodynamics (SWIM; U.S. DoE Office of Science Award Number DE-FC02-06ER54899) is summarized and is shown to fulfil the project objectives. The Tech-X portion of the SWIM work focused on the development of analytic and computational approaches to study neoclassical tearing modes and their interaction with injected electron cyclotron current drive. Using formalism developed by Hegna, Callen, and Ramos [Phys. Plasmas 16, 112501 (2009); Phys. Plasmas 17, 082502 (2010); Phys. Plasmas 18, 102506 (2011)], analytic approximations for the RF interaction were derived and the numerical methods needed to implement these interactions in the NIMROD extended MHD code were developed. Using the SWIM IPS framework, NIMROD has successfully coupled to GENRAY, an RF ray tracing code; additionally, a numerical control system to trigger the RF injection, adjustment, and shutdown in response to tearing mode activity has been developed. We discuss these accomplishments, as well as prospects for ongoing future research that this work has enabled (which continue in a limited fashion under the SciDAC Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling (CEMM) project and under a baseline theory grant). Associated conference presentations, published articles, and publications in progress are also listed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Atomic Data and Modelling for Fusion: the ADAS Project

The paper is an update on the Atomic Data and Analysis Structure, ADAS, since ICAM-DATA06 and a forward look to its evolution in the next five years. ADAS is an international project supporting principally magnetic confinement fusion research. It has participant laboratories throughout the world, including ITER and all its partner countries. In parallel with ADAS, the ADAS-EU Project provides enhanced support for fusion research at Associated Laboratories and Universities in Europe and ITER. OPEN-ADAS, sponsored jointly by the ADAS Project and IAEA, is the mechanism for open access to principal ADAS atomic data classes and facilitating software for their use. EXTENDED-ADAS comprises a variety of special, integrated application software, beyond the purely atomic bounds of ADAS, tuned closely to specific diagnostic analyses and plasma models.The current scientific content and scope of these various ADAS and ADAS related activities are briefly reviewed. These span a number of themes including heavy element spectroscopy and models, charge exchange spectroscopy, beam emission spectroscopy and special features which provide a broad baseline of atomic modelling and support. Emphasis will be placed on 'lifting the fundamental data baseline'--a principal ADAS task for the next few years. This will include discussion of ADAS and ADAS-EU coordinated and shared activities and some of the methods being exploited.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

FUSION ENERGY SCIENCES WORKSHOP ON PLASMA MATERIALS INTERACTIONS: Report on Science Challenges and Research Opportunities in Plasma Materials Interactions

The realization of controlled thermonuclear fusion as an energy source would transform society, providing a nearly limitless energy source with renewable fuel. Under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program management recently launched a series of technical workshops to “seek community engagement and input for future program planning activities” in the targeted areas of (1) Integrated Simulation for Magnetic Fusion Energy Sciences, (2) Control of Transients, (3) Plasma Science Frontiers, and (4) Plasma-Materials Interactions aka Plasma-Materials Interface (PMI). Over the past decade, a number of strategic planning activities1-6 have highlighted PMI and plasma facing components as a major knowledge gap, which should be a priority for fusion research towards ITER and future demonstration fusion energy systems. There is a strong international consensus that new PMI solutions are required in order for fusion to advance beyond ITER. The goal of the 2015 PMI community workshop was to review recent innovations and improvements in understanding the challenging PMI issues, identify high-priority scientific challenges in PMI, and to discuss potential options to address those challenges. The community response to the PMI research assessment was enthusiastic, with over 80 participants involved in the open workshop held at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory on May 4-7, 2015. The workshop provided a useful forum for the scientific community to review progress in scientific understanding achieved during the past decade, and to openly discuss high-priority unresolved research questions. One of the key outcomes of the workshop was a focused set of community-initiated Priority Research Directions (PRDs) for PMI. Five PRDs were identified, labeled A-E, which represent community consensus on the most urgent near-term PMI scientific issues. For each PRD, an assessment was made of the scientific challenges, as well as a set of actions to address those challenges. No prioritization was attempted amongst these five PRDs. We note that ITER, an international collaborative project to substantially extend fusion science and technology, is implicitly a driver and beneficiary of the research described in these PRDs; specific ITER issues are discussed in the background and PRD chapters. For succinctness, we describe these PRDs directly below; a brief introduction to magnetic fusion and the workshop process/timeline is given in Chapter I, and panelists are listed in the Appendix.

Maingi, Rajesh↗
DOE OSTI2024

MHD stability analysis against pressure and current-driven modes in the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak

Linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) have been carried out for the first time, for both positive (PT) and negative triangularity (NT) shaped plasmas using the MARS-F code. The MHD stability of projected SMART plasmas against internal kinks, infernal modes and edge peeling-ballooning modes have been analyzed for a wide range of realistic equilibria. A stabilization of internal kinks and infernal modes is observed when increasing the safety factor profile and reducing plasma beta. PT shaped plasmas are more stable against both internal kinks and infernal modes than their counterpart NT shaped plasmas. Toroidal flows have little impact on the MHD stability of the internal kinks, but they have a strong stabilizing effect on infernal modes, which can be further mitigated in NT shaped plasmas. The MHD stability of peeling-ballooning modes is reduced in NT shaped plasmas, as observed in conventional tokamaks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Experimental and numerical investigation of non-neutral complex plasmas

A plasma of particles with the same sign of charge, can be easily confined under ultra-high vacuum conditions in Penning-Malmberg traps, where the time evolution of the system is monitored for very long times by means of electrostatic and optical diagnostic systems. Complex (dusty) plasmas are ionized gases that contain a distribution of micrometer-sized particles with a surface charge of the order of a few thousand electron charges. The interplay between a wide range of scales in time and space gives rise to new characteristic physical phenomena. Laboratory complex plasmas generally satisfy a global (quasi-)neutrality condition. A different concept is represented by a non-neutral complex plasma. To investigate the dynamics of this system, we are currently developing the DuEl (Dust-Electron) device, where negatively charged dust particles will be present together with a population of electrons. The experimental set-up will include a dust injection system and a Penning-Malmberg trap for the confinement of the dust-contaminated electron plasma. We describe here the main physical aims of the project and the present design of the apparatus. To support the experimental project, we have been developing a specifically tailored two-dimensional 'hybrid' Particle-In-Cell code. Using polar cylindrical coordinates, the code aims to investigate the transverse dynamics of a magnetized electron plasma contaminated by a massive, charged species. A mass-less fluid approximation for the electron population is exploited, while the dust component is treated with a kinetic description, also including the gravitational force. The preliminary results of systematic studies on the effects of heavy (magnetized or non-magnetized) dust grains on the equilibrium and stability properties of the electron fluid are presented. The implementation of other characteristic phenomena of interest, e.g. residual gas friction and dust charge fluctuations, is also under development.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Final Report for "SciDAC Center for Simulation of Wave-Plasma Interactions (CSWPI)"

This project has provided for the participation of the PI (Dr. David Smithe) and other Tech-X Corporation personnel in the larger CSWPI (Center for the Study of Wave Plasma Interactions) SciDAC project. In addition to collaborative efforts in several areas, the PI's thrust research area has focused on the tokamak edge, in the vicinity of the antenna structure, and on the specific physics of interest to the edge, including RF sheath formation. This interest is being driven by a desire to understand measured anomalous power losses that are associated with the edge region. Realistic true 3D geometry simulation capability of the operating antenna, immersed in the edge plasma, has been developed. Geometry accuracy is at the same degree as CAD drawings themselves. In addition, the plasma model includes an RF sheath potential calculation for cells where the plasma is in contact with the metallic structure of the antenna. This capability, in a time-domain simulation, is presently unique. This model can be used to immediately estimate local sheaths (and possibly sputtering damage caused by them), and will be used in the future to model long-range sheaths. Modeling on this scale, in 3D, clearly requires very large scale parallel processing and advanced computing. Ultimately, the desire is to provide quantitative prediction of parasitic edge loss, and edge plasma behavior, analogous to the quantitative core models that have long been a staple of the RF modeling regime.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Performance Evaluation of K-DEMO Cable-in-conduit Conductors Using the Florida Electro-Mechanical Cable Model

The United States ITER Project Office (USIPO) is responsible for design of the Toroidal Field (TF) insert coil, which will allow validation of the performance of significant lengths of the conductors to be used in the full scale TF coils in relevant conditions of field, current density and mechanical strain. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) will build the TF insert which will be tested at the Central Solenoid Model Coil (CSMC) Test facility at JAEA, Naka, Japan. Three dimensional mathematical model of TF Insert was created based on the initial design geometry data, and included the following features: orthotropic material properties of superconductor material and insulation; external magnetic field from CSMC, temperature dependent properties of the materials; pre-compression and plastic deformation in lap joint. Major geometrical characteristics of the design were preserved including cable jacket and insulation shape, mandrel outline, and support clamps and spacers. The model is capable of performing coupled structural, thermal, and electromagnetic analysis using ANSYS. Numerical simulations were performed for room temperature conditions; cool down to 4K, and the operating regime with 68kA current at 11.8 Tesla background field. Numerical simulations led to the final design of the coil producing the required strain levels on the cable, while simultaneously satisfying the ITER magnet structural design criteria.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modeling of a chain of three plasma accelerator stages with the WarpX electromagnetic PIC code on GPUs

The fully electromagnetic particle-in-cell code WarpX is being developed by a team of the U.S. DOE Exascale Computing Project (with additional non-U.S. collaborators on part of the code) to enable the modeling of chains of tens to hundreds of plasma accelerator stages on exascale supercomputers, for future collider designs. The code is combining the latest algorithmic advances (e.g., Lorentz boosted frame and pseudo-spectral Maxwell solvers) with mesh refinement and runs on the latest computer processing unit and graphical processing unit (GPU) architectures. In this paper, we summarize the strategy that was adopted to port WarpX to GPUs, report on the weak parallel scaling of the pseudo-spectral electromagnetic solver, and then present solutions for decreasing the time spent in data exchanges from guard regions between subdomains. In Sec. IV, we demonstrate the simulations of a chain of three consecutive multi-GeV laser-driven plasma accelerator stages.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

The study of local overheating and plasma formation on stainless steel z-pinch targets

Plasma formation from intensely ohmically heated conductors is known to be highly non-uniform, as local overheating can be driven by micron-scale imperfections. Detailed understanding of plasma formation is required to predict the performance of magnetically driven physics targets and magnetically-insulated transmission lines (MITLs). Previous LDRD-supported work (projects 178661 and 200269) developed the electrothermal instability (ETI) platform, on the Mykonos facility, to gather high-resolution images of the self-emission from the non-uniform ohmic heating of z-pinch rods. Experiments studying highly inhomogeneous alloyed aluminum captured complex heating topography. To enable detailed comparison with magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation, 99.999% pure aluminum rods in a z-pinch configuration were diamond-turned to ~10nm surface roughness and then further machined to include well-characterized micron-scale "engineered" defects (ED) on the rod's surface (T.J. Awe, et al., Phys. Plasmas 28, 072104 (2021)). In this project, the engineered defect hardware and diagnostic platform were used to study ETI evolution and non-uniform plasma formation from stainless steel targets. The experimental objective was to clearly determine what, if any, role manufacturing, preparation, or alloy differences have in encouraging nonuniform heating and plasma formation from high-current density stainless steel. Data may identify improvements that may be implemented in the fabrication/preparation of electrodes used on the Z machine. Preliminary data shows that difference in manufacturer has no observed effect on ETI evolution, stainless alloy 304L heated more uniformly than alloy 310 at similar current densities, and that stainless steel undergoes the same evolutionary ETI stages as ultra-pure aluminum, with increased emission tied to areas of elevated surface roughness.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Investigation of dynamics of ELM crashes and their mitigation techniques

The accurate prediction of H-mode pedestal dynamics is critical for planning experiments in existing tokamaks and in the design of future tokamaks such as ITER and DEMO. The main objective of the proposed research is to advance the understanding of the physics of H-mode pedestal. Through advances in coupled kinetic-MHD simulations, a new model for H-mode pedestal and ELM crashes as well as an improved model for the bootstrap current will be developed. ELMmitigation techniques will also be investigated. The proposed research will help design efficient confinement scenarios and reduce transient heat loads on the divertor and plasma facing components. During the last two years, the principal investigator (PI) of this proposal actively participated in physics studies related to the DOE Joint Research Targets. These studies include the modeling of divertor heat load in the DIII-D, Alcator C-Mod, and NSTX tokamaks in 2010, and the modeling of H-mode pedestal structure in the DIII-D tokamak in 2011. It is proposed that this close collaboration with experimentalists from major US tokamaks continue during the next funding period. Verification and validation will be a strong component of the proposed research. During the course of the project, advances will be made in the following areas; Dynamics of the H-mode pedestal buildup and recovery after ELM crashes – The effects of neutral fueling, particle and thermal pinches will be explored; Dynamics of ELM crashes in realistic tokamak geometries – Heat loads associated with ELM crashes will be validated against experimental measurements. An improved model for ELM crashes will be developed; ELM mitigation – The effect of resonant magnetic perturbations on ELMs stability and their evolution will be investigated; Development of a new bootstrap current model – A reduced model for will be developed through careful verification of existing models for bootstrap current against first-principle kinetic neoclassical simulations. The primary focus here will be on plasma regimes where the existing reduced models deviate from each other, such as high-beta and low aspect ratio plasmas; and Results will be verified against analytical models and simulation results from other codes. Simulation results will be compared with diagnostic experimental data such as Thomson measurements (HRTC) or flux measurements if available. We have arrangements with experimentalists from DIII-D and JET to use diagnostic edge data for this validation. In summary, we propose to study the H-mode pedestal buildup, the stability and evolution of ELMs using a model that will account for dynamically evolving neoclassical sources.

42 ENGINEERING↗