Advances in plasma–wall interaction control for H-mode operation over 100 s with ITER-like tungsten divertor on EAST

Abstract

A total power injection up to 0.3 GJ has been achieved in EAST long pulse H-mode operation of 101.2 s with an ITER-like water-cooled tungsten (W) mono-block divertor, which has steady-state power exhaust capability of 10 MWm−2. The peak temperature of W target saturated at 12 s to the value T ~ 500 °C with a heat flux ~3.3 MW m−2 being maintained during the discharge. By tailoring the 3D divertor plasma footprint through edge magnetic topology change, the heat load was broadly dispersed and thus peak heat flux and W sputtering were well controlled. Active feedback control of H-mode detachment with D2 fuelling or divertor impurity seeding has been achieved successfully, with excellent compatibility with the core plasma performance. Active feedback control of radiative power utilizing neon seeding was achieved with f rad = 18%–41% in H-mode operation, exhibiting potential for heat flux reduction with divertor and edge radiation. This has been further demonstrated in DIII-D high βP H-mode scenario within the joint DIII-D/EAST experiment using impurity seeding from the divertor volume. Steady-state particle control and impurity exhaust has been achieved for long pulse H-mode operation over 100 s with the W divertor by leveraging the effect of drifts and optimized divertor configuration, coupled with strong pumping and extensive wall conditioning. Approaches toward the reduction of divertor W sourcing, which is of crucial importance for a metal-wall tokamak, are also explored. These advances provide important experimental information on favourable core-edge integration for high power, long-pulse H-mode operation in EAST, ITER and CFETR.