Impact of wall saturation on particle control in long and high-power-heated discharges in JT-60U

Abstract

Modification for long pulse operation up to 65 s with a neutral beam heating power of 12 MW (30 s) has provided an opportunity for studies on plasma-wall interaction on a time scale of tens of seconds. During a long pulse, ELMy H-mode discharge, the net wall-pumping rate, evaluated by a particle balance analysis, gradually decreases, and subsequently, becomes zero in ∼20 s after the neutral beam injection starts. This situation is interpreted as ‘wall saturation’. Wall saturation is observed in repetitive long pulse discharges. Although the outgas due to the increase in the divertor plate temperature and increase in the static retention with pulses also contribute to the particle balance, the dynamic retention process dominates the particle balance and determines the wall saturation. Under the condition of wall saturation, the plasma density continuously increases due to insufficient divertor-pumping rate. This density rise results in detachment of the outer divertor plasma, followed by an X-point MARFE. Results from the calculation of a 2-dimensional plasma transport code indicate that higher divertor-pumping efficiency by a factor of 1.5 is required to avoid the detachment. Note that no negative effects on impurity behaviour such as carbon bloom, or significant dilution of the core plasma has been observed even in the case of the total input energy reaching 350 MJ.