Low MHD activity using resonant helical field and limiter biasing in IR-T1 tokamak

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, the effect of resonant helical magnetic field (RHF) and cold biased local limiter on plasma current, loop voltage, confinement time energy, poloidal beta, line emission intensity Hα, and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) behavior based on Mirnov oscillations in the IR-T1 tokamak has been investigated. The experiments have been done in different regimes as cold biased local limiter, magnetic perturbation application, and both of these. At first the effect of the positive and negative bias voltage on plasma parameters and magnetic fluctuations detected by Mirnov coils has been investigated. Also, the effects of RHF on plasma parameters have been investigated in the edge region. Then the effects of applied biasing and RHF at the same time are analyzed. The bias voltage has been restricted to (−320 ≤ Vbias ≤ +320) and it has been applied with the limiter biasing that is fixed at r = 11.25 cm. These parameters have been measured using a diamagnetic loop, spectrometer, which is a visible light spectrometer for H-alpha, and Mirnov coils. The time-resolved frequency component analysis has been performed using short-time Fourier transforms. Fourier-based techniques and auto-correlation have been employed to analyze the frequency of MHD fluctuations. The results show that applied radial electric field at the plasma edge could control electromagnetic instabilities in the tokamak. In the positive biased regime, the amplitude of low-frequency Mirnov oscillations (<30 kHz) decreases after the application of biasing. Confinement time increases and line emission intensity decreases in all situations. The results are reversed when negative biasing has been applied. When RHF and biasing are applied to the plasma at the same time, the plasma parameters do not change any more compared to corresponding discharges with only RHF (L = 3). In other words, the amplitude of MHD activity can be totally controlled when a convenient biasing is applied to the limiter in the phases of current flat-top.