Theory of nonaxisymmetric vertical displacement events in tokamaks

Abstract

A semi-analytic sharp-boundary model of a nonaxisymmetric vertical displacement event (VDE) in a large aspect-ratio, high-beta (i.e. β ∼ ϵ), vertically elongated tokamak plasma is developed. The model is used to simulate nonaxisymmetric VDEs with a wide range of different plasma equilibrium and vacuum vessel parameters. These simulations yield poloidal halo current fractions and toroidal peaking factors whose magnitudes are similar to those seen in experiments, and also reproduce the characteristic inverse scaling between the halo current fraction and the toroidal peaking factor. Moreover, the peak poloidal halo current density in the vacuum vessel is found to correlate strongly with the reciprocal of the minimum edge safety factor attained during the VDE. In addition, under certain circumstances, the ratio of the net sideways force acting on the vacuum vessel to the net vertical force is observed to approach unity. Finally, the peak vertical force per unit area acting on the vessel is found to have a strong correlation with the equilibrium toroidal plasma current at the start of the VDE, but is also found to increase with increasing vacuum vessel resistivity relative to the scrape-off layer plasma.