Spectroscopic study of impurity behaviour in neutral beam heated and ohmically heated TFTR discharges

Abstract

Quantitative spectroscopic measurements of Zeff, impurity densities and radiated power losses have been made for ohmically heated and neutral beam heated TFTR discharges at a plasma current of 2.2 MA and a toroidal field of 4.7 T. Variations in these quantities with line average plasma density (n̄e) and beam power up to 5.6 MW are presented for discharges on a movable graphite limiter. A detailed discussion of the use of an impurity transport model to infer absolute impurity densities and radiative losses from line intensity and visible continuum measurements is given. These discharges were dominated by low-Z impurities, with carbon having a considerably higher density than oxygen, except in high n̄e Ohmic discharges where the densities of carbon and oxygen were comparable. Metallic impurity concentrations and radiative losses were small, resulting in hollow radiated power profiles and fractions of the input power radiated being 30–50% for Ohmic heating and 30% or less for beam heating. Spectroscopic estimates of the radiated power were in good agreement with bolometrically measured values. Because of an increase in the carbon density, Zeff rose from 2.0 to 2.8 as the beam power increased from 0 to 5.6 MW, pointing to a potentially serious dilution of the neutron producing plasma ions with increasing beam power. Both the low-Z and the metallic impurity concentrations were approximately constant with minor radius, indicating no central impurity accumulation in these discharges.