Application of a particle, momentum, and energy balance model to calculate the structure of the edge pedestal in DIII-D

Abstract

A calculation of edge density and temperature profiles based on “classical” physics—particle, momentum, and energy balances, heat conduction closure relations, and neutral particle transport—yielded a pedestal structure that is qualitatively and quantitatively similar to that found experimentally in five DIII-D [J. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)] discharges, when experimental radial electric field and rotation profiles and experimentally inferred heat transport coefficients were used. The principal cause of the density pedestal was a peaking of the inward pinch velocity just inside the separatrix caused by the negative well in the experimental electric field, and the secondary cause was a peaking of the radial particle flux caused by the ionization of incoming neutrals. There is some evidence that this peaking of the radial particle flux just inside the separatrix may also be responsible in part for the negative electric field in that location.