SOLPS5.1 analysis of detachment with drifts and gas pumping effects in EAST

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to estimate the effects of usual drifts and gas puffing/pumping locations on divertor detachment and Ar ion transport in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) by using the edge plasma code package SOLPS5.1. The simulated results reveal that which target plate first detaches depends strongly on the usual drifts, but not on the location of impurity gas puffing, which could be one of the possible explanations for the experimentally observed phenomenon (Chen et al 2013 Phys. Plasmas 20 022311) that the lower inner target first detached compared to the lower outer target with the lower outer gas puffing. The physics behind this phenomenon is that drifts not only can induce background ion flux, plasma density and temperature redistribution in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and divertor region, but also can change the Ar impurity force balance leading to Ar ions being dragged from bottom to top. Furthermore, the simulated results illustrate that the Ar ion transport in the SOL and divertor region is similar for different gas puffing locations including upstream and divertor region before partial detachment. However, the Ar ions penetrate into the core more easily, giving rise to more discharge disruption during complete detachment with upstream gas puffing than with divertor region puffing. Finally, we also estimate the effect of gas pumping on the detachment in order to realize long-pulse partial detachment in EAST. The results indicate that long-pulse partial detachment could be obtained by improving the pumping speed to match the puffing speed in case the excess Ar atoms accumulate in the core plasma during partial detachment in EAST.