Simulation of EAST edge plasma using SOLPS-ITER/BOUT++ coupling

Abstract

The self-consistent simulation of transport and turbulence in tokamak edge plasma on the EAST tokamak is performed by coupling the fluid plasma/neutral 2D transport code SOLPS-ITER and the fluid 3D turbulence code BOUT++. The convergence of the coupling is validated. The changing rates between the two consecutive profiles of density, electron temperature and ion temperature are close to zero in the last several iteration steps, and the variations of the transport coefficients Dr, χe and χi also show the tendency to diminish as the iteration step increases, indicating that the coupling tends to be in a quasi-steady state. The edge plasma at the time t = 3400 ms in shot 36 780 with deuterium discharge on EAST is simulated by the SOLPS-ITER/BOUT++ coupling. The MHD equilibrium at the shot time with the lower single-null configuration is used for the production of the computational meshes for SOLPS-ITER and BOUT++, respectively. The computational profiles of electron density and temperature, particle and heat fluxes at the divertor targets from the SOLPS-ITER/BOUT++ coupling simulation are compared with the measured profiles, and it is found that the computational and measured profiles are similar.