Pedestal Density Research Articles

Effects of a coherent mode on the redistribution of divertor particle flux in HL-2A H-mode plasmas

The effects of a coherent mode (CM) at a frequency of f = 13–16 kHz on the redistribution of divertor particle flux have been studied in HL-2A H-mode plasmas using multiple diagnostics. The experimental results demonstrate that a CM localized at the middle of the pedestal results in outward particle transport, limiting the growth of the pedestal density gradient in the recovery phase of the pedestal, leading to a substantial increase in the localized particle flux striking the outer divertor target, which clearly deviates from the primary peak at the strike point. These observations indicate that the CM might play a crucial role in redistributing the divertor particle flux, which is important for understanding and controlling the divertor heat flux in future fusion-relevant devices.

Type-I ELM mitigation by continuous lithium granule gravitational injection into the upper tungsten divertor in EAST

Large edge-localized modes (ELMs) were mitigated by gravitational injection of lithium granules into the upper X-point region of the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) device with tungsten plasma-facing components. The maximum ELM size was reduced by ∼70% in high β N H-mode plasmas. Large ELM stabilization was sustained for up to about 40 energy confinement times, with constant core radiated power and no evidence of high-Z or low-Z impurity accumulation. The lithium granules injection reduced the edge plasma pedestal density and temperature and their gradients, due to increased edge radiation and reduced recycling from the plasma-facing components. Ideal stability calculations using the ELITE code indicate that the stabilization of large ELMs correlates with improved stability of intermediate-n peeling-ballooning modes, due to reduced edge current resulting from the profile changes. The pedestal pressure reduction was partially offset by a core density increase, which resulted in a modest ∼7% drop in core stored energy and normalized energy confinement time. We surmise that the remnant small ELMs are triggered by the penetration of multiple Li granules just past the separatrix, similar to small ELMs triggered by deuterium pellet Futatani et al (2014 Nucl. Fusion 54 073008). This study extends previous ELM elimination with Li powder injection Maingi et al (2018 Nucl. Fusion 58 024003) in EAST because (1) use of small, dust-like powder and the related potential health hazards were eliminated, and (2) use of macroscopic granules should be more applicable to future devices, due to deeper penetration than dust particles, e.g. inside the separatrix with velocities ∼10 m s−1 in EAST.

Experimental study of core and edge fluctuations by reflectometry on EAST tokamak

An eight-channel poloidal correlation reflectometer (PCR) with O-mode polarization has been installed in the EAST tokamak to measure the fluctuations from core to edge. The PCR launches eight different frequency microwaves (20.4, 24.8, 33, 40, 42.4, 48, 52.6, 57.2 GHz) into the plasma from the low field side and two poloidally separated antennae are used to receive the reflected waves. As a result, the diagnostic can measure fluctuations in eight (radial)× two (poloidal) spatial positions. The diagnostic has been applied to study the core and edge pedestal fluctuations during an inter-ELM phase in H-mode plasma. This inter-ELM phase can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, a low frequency (<50 kHz) broadband fluctuation dominates in the pedestal gradient region. In the second stage, this fluctuation is strongly suppressed and quasi-coherent fluctuations (QCFs) appear. The QCF’s amplitude increases with the pedestal density gradient, implying density gradient driven instabilities. But the core fluctuations inside the pedestal show no evident changes during the inter-ELM phase.

The role of edge fueling in determining the pedestal density in high neutral opacity Alcator C-Mod experiments

SOLPS-ITER modeling of EDA H-mode experiments on Alcator C-Mod find that the electron density pedestal structure is unaffected by increased gas fueling when approaching ITER-like opaqueness conditions. SOLPS-ITER simulations show a decrease in the neutral penetration depth with increasing pedestal density, similar to prior experiments (Hughes et al., 2006). Neutral density and penetration depth vary poloidally, and we show that the highest neutral densities at the separatrix are found closest to the gas puff locations both on the high field side and the low field side. The decrease in the neutral penetration depth with increasing pedestal density, as well as the decrease in the neutral density at the separatrix, are not just limited to the midplane, but persist at every poloidal location. We find, however, that when gas puffs of similar magnitude as those employed in experiments are added, a much larger increase in the electron density is observed over the whole modeled plasma radius. This does suggest that changes in transport will need to be included self-consistently. • SOLPS-ITER provides insight on the dynamics of neutrals in high opacity H-modes. • SOL neutral opacity can be quantified by radial neutral density e-folding length. • Density pedestal formation is mostly unaffected as pedestal opacity increases. increases. • High gas-puffing only moderately increases neutral penetration of the pedestal. • At high pedestal opacity, main chamber fueling dominates fueling through the X-point.

Impact of the new TCV baffled divertor upgrade on pedestal structure and performance

Abstract A new set of carbon tiles, neutral beam heating optics and gas baffles were installed on TCV during the baffled divertor upgrade in early 2019. The installation of the baffles allows a deconvolution of the roles of main chamber and divertor neutral pressure on the H-mode pedestal structure. This physical barrier allows relatively high neutral pressures to be constrained to the divertor, thus preventing neutrals from entering the main chamber and potentially degrading core confinement. This study presents the experimentally measured and modelled pedestal heights and structure for a series of H-mode discharges prior to and after this upgrade. Increased pedestal performance at high divertor neutral pressure was observed after the baffled divertor upgrade. This was consistent across all triangularities and outer target locations investigated and is attributed to higher pedestal top temperatures being maintained at high gas injection rates. ASTRA simulations indicated beam heating power coupled to the plasma did not significantly vary after the baffled divertor upgrade or as a function of divertor neutral gas pressure. Analysis of the pedestal structure exposed a strong correlation between pedestal performance and the density pedestal position prior to and after the baffled divertor upgrade. The baffled divertor upgrade limited the outward shift of the density pedestal, thus maintaining higher pedestal performance at high divertor neutral pressures. Stability analysis indicated the majority of discharges studied were within 25% of the stability boundary. No correlation was found between the distance from the stability boundary and pedestal performance or structure. Comparison with the EPED1 model indicated that TCV discharges do not have a fixed dependence between pedestal β θ and pedestal width. A large variation in the EPED1 relating parameter was observed and found to vary with the density pedestal position.

Plasma performance improvement with favourable B t relative to unfavourable B t in RF-heated H-mode plasmas in EAST

Significant improvement of plasma performance in high-confinement mode (H-mode) discharges with favourable toroidal field B t, i.e. the ion ∇B drift towards the primary X-point, has been widely observed in the EAST tokamak with pure radio-frequency heating in contrast to that with the unfavourable B t. Statistical analysis indicates that plasma in the favourable B t has higher core electron temperature, similar core ion temperature and relatively steeper pedestal density compared with that in the unfavourable B t. The improvement in plasma performance is mainly contributed by the increase of core electron temperature in the favourable B t. Further analysis indicates that the plasma with favourable B t has much lower density and recycling in the scrape-off layer (SOL). Lower SOL density and recycling benefit the mitigation of parametric instability activity of lower hybrid wave (LHW), and thus facilitate the increase of core electron temperature in the favourable B t. The performance improvement in the favourable B t demonstrates to be more evident with high LHW power. Divertor local E r × B drift which can increase the backflow particles from the divertor region to the upstream region could be partly responsible for the much higher SOL plasma density in unfavourable B t. These findings could facilitate the application of LHW power on future large fusion devices, such as the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor, to achieve high-performance steady-state operation.

Change in the pedestal stability between JET-C and JET-ILW low triangularity peeling-ballooning limited plasmas

This work discusses the possible mechanisms that have led to the degradation of the pedestal pressure height and pedestal stability of low triangularity peeling-ballooning (PB) limited pla-smas from JET with the carbon wall (JET-C) to JET with the ITER-like wall (JET-ILW). The work shows that the lower pedestal stability of JET-ILW is not directly caused by the presence of a metal wall, but rather due to the operational constraints that require operation with high gas fuelling. Recent results have suggested the possible role of the distance between the density and temperature pedestal positions (n e pos − T e pos, also called the ‘relative shift’) with increasing gas fuelling rate on the PB stability of JET-ILW baseline plasmas (Stefanikova et al 2018 Nucl. Fusion 58 056010). The work further extends the analysis of the role of the relative shift, showing that it plays an important role in the difference between the pedestal performance of JET-C and JET-ILW. Moreover, the work also shows that the pedestal density n e ped, Z eff, and pedestal pressure width w pe play an important role in this difference. The pedestal structure and stability have been studied both experimentally and by modelling. The modelling shows that the changes in n e pos − T e pos, n e ped, Z eff, and w pe are sufficient to explain the differences in the pedestal performance between JET-C and JET-ILW PB limited discharges. A hypothesis describing the possible mechanisms leading to the degradation of the pedestal pressure and stability from JET-C to JET-ILW in PB limited plasmas is put forward.

Grassy ELM regime at low pedestal collisionality in high-power tokamak plasma

Spontaneous mitigation of giant ELMs and appearance of grassy ELMs have been observed repeatedly at low pedestal collisionality () in the high-power (P inj > 13 MW) hybrid scenario in DIII-D. Higher β p and higher q 95 appear to be beneficial to achieving the grassy ELM regime. The grassy ELM H-mode plasma shows high energy confinement performance (H 98y2 up to over 1.5) under the conditions of high neutral beam torque and high core rotation. The pedestal width appears to exceed the EPED1.0 model prediction by more than 50%. Pedestal stability analysis performed with the ELITE code indicates that the stability against low-n kink/peeling modes is improved with increased auxiliary heating power and the operational point in the grassy ELM regime is located near the ballooning boundary. The pedestal stability characteristics during the grassy ELM crashes have been investigated in comparison with the giant ELM crashes based on plasma profiles experimentally measured with high resolution and accuracy. It has been found that the underlying mechanism for the observed small-amplitude ELM crashes is mainly the expansion of the ballooning stability boundary induced by an initial radially localized collapse in the pedestal, which helps to stop the growth of instabilities and further collapse of the pedestal. The effect of electron density pedestal on mitigating edge localized instabilities has been analyzed by numerical simulation, suggesting that the electron density pedestal characterized by high n e,sep/n e,ped and low density gradient helps to stabilize peeling-ballooning modes because of a low pressure pedestal gradient and to lower the ballooning boundary mainly because of a low ion diamagnetic frequency in the pedestal region, thus triggering ballooning instabilities and producing the intrinsic grassy ELMs. Numerical simulation of the Chinese fusion engineering test reactor (CFETR) with the SOLPS code indicates that the separatrix density might be insensitive to the electron diffusivity in the pedestal region and increase with the power flowing from the core region to the edge region. Pedestal stability analysis suggests that the flat density pedestal with high separatrix density obtained in the high-power plasma in CFETR would make the operational point close to the ballooning boundary, which is considered to help destabilize ballooning instabilities and facilitate the access to the grassy ELM regime.

Accounting for Edge-Plasma Parameter Dynamics at JET Divertor Sputtering Estimation during Edge-Localized Modes

The sputtering of tungsten divertor tiles at the JET ITER-like wall (ILW) during edge-localized modes (ELMs) is one of the main sources of tungsten impurity in the core plasma. The analytical approach for interpretation of the Langmuir probe (LP) measurements of ion flux at the divertor tile is elaborated to model the ELM ion parallel transport and to estimate the flux of sputtered tungsten atoms from the divertor under inter-ELM and intra-ELM conditions. Accounting for the pedestal temperature and density decrease at the pedestal crash during ELM allows obtaining the profiles of the particle and heat fluxes at the divertor tile corresponding to the measurements at the physically correct magnetic connection length. Estimates of the tungsten sputtered flux under intra-ELM and inter-ELM conditions show that first type ELMs contribute significantly (~85%) to the overall tungsten sputtering, which is in a good agreement with the divertor optical emission spectroscopy of the 400.9 nm atomic neutral tungsten line in JET discharges.

Pedestal structure, stability and scalings in JET-ILW: the EUROfusion JET-ILW pedestal database

The EUROfusion JET-ILW pedestal database is described, with emphasis on three main issues. First, the technical aspects are introduced, including a description of the data selection, the datasets, the diagnostics used, the experimental and theoretical methods implemented and the main definitions. Second, the JET-ILW pedestal structure and stability are described. In particular, the work describes the links between the engineering parameters (power, gas and divertor configuration) and the disagreement with the peeling-ballooning (PB) model implemented with ideal magnetohydrodynamics equations. Specifically, the work clarifies why the JET-ILW pedestal tends to be far from the PB boundary at high gas and high power, showing that a universal threshold in power and gas cannot be found but that the relative shift (the distance between the position of the pedestal density and of the pedestal temperature) plays a key role. These links are then used to achieve an empirical explanation of the behavior of the JET-ILW pedestal pressure with gas, power and divertor configuration. Third, the pedestal database is used to revise the scaling law of the pedestal stored energy. The work shows a reasonable agreement with the earlier Cordey scaling in terms of plasma current and triangularity dependence, but highlights some differences in terms of power and isotope mass dependence.

The factors determining the evolution of edge-localized modes in plasmas driven by lower hybrid currents

Modulated lower-hybrid waves (LHWs) are injected into the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak to determine the physical principles responsible for the suppression or mitigation of edge-localized modes (ELMs). There are two cases of modulated-ELM evolution (stable and unstable cases), because of two different modulated pedestal densities. They can be attributed to additional magnetic perturbations induced by the LHWs, similarly to the effect of resonant magnetic perturbations. As regards the case of unstable modulated ELM evolution, the plasma stored energy increases as the LHWs turn on. In contrast, the central line-averaged electron density decreases, which is different from the case of ELM suppression or from the stably modulated case. The effect of LHWs or density ‘pump-out’ effect can pass across the top of the pedestal region and enter the interior of the density pedestal, causing a decrease in the electron density gradient and its value at the top of the pedestal. Simultaneously, the pressure gradient and edge bootstrap current density increase. For ELM suppression (or for the stable) case, LHWs can couple only with the plasma outside the top region of pedestal, because of the higher top value of density pedestal. Thus, LHWs can pump out the electron density significantly only in the pedestal foot region, producing a larger gradient of electron density pedestal. Statistical analysis of the data indicates that there is a threshold value of the central line-averaged electron density for each of the two modulated ELM cases. Furthermore, the ELM amplitude is modulated by LHWs with a time delay of hundreds of microseconds, which may be further evidence that LHWs have a significant impact on the evolution of ELMs and pedestal structures. All these results imply that there is a significant correlation between the ELM behavior and the electron density profiles modulated by LHWs.

Effects of triangularity on the fusion performance of CFETR

An important task of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor physics design is to develop operation scenarios with high fusion power (1 GW), high bootstrap current fraction for steady-state and a plasma edge compatible with heat and particle exhaust. To achieve these goals, triangularity (δ) effects on the fusion performance of two candidate scenarios, with or without reversed magnetic shear (RS), namely conventional H-mode and RS H-mode, are evaluated using core-edge coupled integrated modeling in this paper. For fixed pedestal density, it is shown that higher δ is favorable for higher fusion performance in the conventional H-mode scenario while the fusion performance decreases with increasing δ in the RS H-mode scenario. In conventional H-mode, the higher fusion performance at high δ mainly comes from a higher pedestal temperature as predicted by EPED in combination with stiff core kinetic profiles. In the RS H-mode scenario with a local reversed shear region, the profiles are non-stiff and a strong internal transport barrier (ITB) exists at low δ. This results in higher density and temperature inside the ITB for low δ, leading to higher fusion power. If the pedestal temperature is kept fixed, in both scenarios the significant increase in pedestal density, which extends into the core, dominates at high δ and leads to much higher fusion power. For conventional H-mode, destabilization from increasing δ is partially balanced by stabilization due to increasing ν*. Since the normalized heat sources are quite similar, it results in minimal changes in the temperature profiles except for the lowest density case. For RS H-mode, destabilization from increasing δ is approximately balanced by stabilization due to increasing ν* in foot region, but a strong temperature ITB is still evident for low δ. The ability to take advantage of the high pedestal density in conventional H-mode and reversed shear scenario depends on its compatibility with edge density requirements from efficient heat and particle exhaust. Transport analysis is presented to elucidate the roles of δ, collisionality and magnetic shear in altering the profiles and the ITB, which contribute to the different behavior in the two scenarios.

Mixed hydrogen-deuterium plasmas on JET ILW

A study of mixed hydrogen-deuterium H-mode plasmas has been carried out in JET-ILW to strengthen the physics basis for extrapolations to JET D-T operation and to support the development of strategies for isotope ratio control in future experiments.Variations of input power, gas fuelling and isotopic mixture were performed in H-mode plasmas of the same magnetic field, plasma current and divertor configuration. The analysis of the energy confinement as a function of isotope mixture reveals that the biggest change is seen in plasmas with small fractions of H or D, in particular when including pure isotope plasmas. To interpret the results correctly, the dependence of the power threshold for access to type-I ELMing H-modes on the isotope mixture must be taken into account. For plasmas with effective mass between 1.2 and 1.8 the plasma thermal stored energy () scales as , which is weaker than that in the ITER physics basis, IPB98 scaling.At fixed stored energy, deuterium-rich plasmas feature higher density pedestals, while the temperature at the pedestal top is lower, showing that at the same gas fuelling rate and power level, the pedestal pressure remains constant with an exchange of density and temperature as the isotope ratio is varied. Isotope control was successfully tested in JET-ILW by changing the isotope ratio throughout a discharge, switching from D to H gas puffing. Several energy confinement times (300 ms) are needed to fully change the isotope ratio during a discharge.

Coherent modes and turbulences observations with multi-channel Doppler reflectometer on experimental advanced superconducting tokamak

With a newly installed 5-channel W-band Doppler reflectometer (DR) in EAST tokamak, many interesting coherence modes and turbulences have been observed. In this paper, the tearing mode (TM), a novel inter-edge localized mode (ELM) electromagnetic mode, and the eigenmode geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) accompanied by a broadband quasi-coherent mode (QCM) during H-mode stage have been reported. The TM could be directly observed in both density fluctuation and perpendicular velocity fluctuation at the DR channel localized in the magnetic island region; moreover, many high-order TM frequency harmonics, dual turbulence peaks inside and outside the island separatrix, and strong flow shear across the island separatrix could also be observed. A high-frequency (∼230 kHz) electromagnetic mode (toroidal mode number n = 1) could be identified. The mode is generated dozens of milliseconds before the ELM crash and may affect the ELM dynamic process. The eigenmode GAM excited during the H-mode stage is generated near the top of the density pedestal and then propagates radially inward with a radial wavenumber of about 1 cm−1. A broadband QCM with a frequency range of 20–100 kHz is always accompanied by eigenmode GAM and nonlinearly coupled with both GAM and the background turbulence from the bispectrum analysis. All these results convince the validity of the Doppler reflectometer in multi-scale measurement from the mesoscale to microscale.

Investigation of the dithering-like cycles induced by deuterium pellet injection during ELMy H-mode plasmas on EAST

By injecting cryogenic deuterium pellets into H-mode plasmas with edge localized modes (ELMs) from the low-field side (LFS) on EAST tokamak, the impact of these pellets on the edge plasma can be investigated. In some cases of pellet injection (PI), the intermediate phase (I-phase), i.e, the dithering-like cycles, have been observed. Experiments show that during one dithering-like cycle, three phases can be distinguished, which are closely related to the variations in the pedestal density profiles and density gradient after PI. Phase 1 is characterized by rapid particle loss and a density pedestal crash, phase 2 has a relatively low density gradient and enhanced edge density fluctuation and phase 3 corresponds to the relatively fast recovery of the density pedestal and reduced edge density fluctuation. Through an experimental analysis, it is shown that the plasma will enter the I-phase when the edge line-averaged density increases beyond a certain threshold value after PI. H-I-H transitions are more likely to be observed when the edge line-averaged density is greater than the core line-averaged density.

Overview of density pedestal structure: role of fueling versus transport

How much of the density pedestal structure is determined by fueling versus transport is still an open question. In most current tokamaks, the scrape-off layer is not opaque enough to screen the neutrals and limit their penetration past the separatrix. As such, recycled neutrals and additional gas puffing can directly affect the pedestal structure through ionization. However, in ITER and other future burning plasma magnetic confinement devices, the ionization source will be pushed further out into the scrape-off layer. This poses the question: how much of the density pedestal structure is governed by this edge ionization source versus plasma transport effects? Theoretically, several turbulent modes have been identified which could provide a ‘pinch-like’ up-gradient transport mechanism. Up-gradient transport is necessary in a source-free region to obtain a peaked density profile, which is often observed in the core of tokamaks. In an opaque scrape-off layer, without the existence of such a pinch, the density pedestal structure would eventually disappear. Not only would this limit our ability to fuel a fusion reactor, it would also affect the pedestal stability. In this paper we will give an overview of the state-of-the-art on what sets the density pedestal structure based on experimental observations as well as theoretical models. We will complement these studies with new results from Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D where the opaqueness is increased to reach values similar to those in ITER.

Recent progress in the design of the K-DEMO divertor

Abstract The preliminary conceptual design of the Korean fusion demonstration reactor (K-DEMO) with a major radius of 6.8 m and the fusion power of 2200 MW has been studied since 2012. The overall configuration of the K-DEMO divetor system based on the ITER-like water-cooled tungsten technology is a double-null type symmetric divertor subdivided into 32 toroidal modules for the vertical maintenance. A detached divertor scenario with impurity seeding was considered as the primary approach for the power exhaust to reduce the peak heat flux lower than the engineering limit of 10 MW/m2. The power exhaust performance at the scrap off layer was estimated by using UEDGE-2D code, a two-dimensional fluid transport code for collisional edge plasma and neutral species like N, Ne, and Ar. Particle and heat flux on inboard and outboard divertor targets were calculated for the detached cased depending on parameters such as the impurity seeding rate, pumping rate, and the pedestal density. On the other hand, a magnetic solution like X-divertor, snowflake divertor, and super X-divertor to expand the plasma wet area was considered for K-DEMO since the detached divertor increasing a radiation fraction by impurity seeding might be able to be unstable. However, the extremely high current of poloidal coils was required more than the engineering limit, 20 MA, to form magnetic field lines for the alternative divertors. Based on the physical calculation of the edge plasma, engineering analyses were carried out to find out the thermal and structural reliability. The thermo-hydraulic analysis confirmed thermal stability, whether all comprising materials are operating within their allowable temperature windows when the case of the peak heat flux is set to 10 MW/m2 on the outboard divertor target. The response surface optimization method derived two optimal design candidates employing two kinds of heat sink materials, respectively: the reduced activation ferritic martensitic (RAFM) steel and CuCrZr alloy. The drawbacks and merits of the two materials were definite. The optimal design with applying RAFM steel was vulnerable to withstand thermal and mechanical loads since low thermal conductivity caused too thin thickness of the heat sink. On the other hand, the CuCrZr alloy has critical drawbacks in terms of activation and radioactive waste despite its high thermal conductivity. Meanwhile, preliminary electromagnetic (EM) analysis was carried out to estimate the EM loads caused by the abnormal behaviors of plasma since EM loads are one of the most critical external loads for designing a DEMO divertor.

Real-time pedestal optimization and ELM control with 3D fields and gas flows on DIII-D

The capabilities of the DIII-D tokamak’s plasma control system (PCS) were expanded to allow for pedestal optimization and edge localized mode (ELM) control. Three proof of principle control schemes are presented that were successfully implemented and tested. These use multiple inputs from real-time (RT) diagnostics like a based ELM monitor and edge profile measurements from Thomson scattering (TS) as well as 3D, i.e. non-axisymmetric, magnetic fields and gas puffs as actuators to regulate the density pedestal.The first scheme targets to optimize the access of ELM suppression induced by non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations (MPs). The conducted set of experiments identifies a path dependence of plasma confinement on the applied MP amplitude. The controller aims to transition into ELM suppression at the minimum 3D field amplitude and reduces it further afterwards, allowing for partial confinement recovery. Another pedestal control scheme is deployed to compensate the density ‘pump-out’ in MP ELM suppression by regulating the gas puff. This uses RT TS diagnostic data, extracting the pedestal height from the electron density () profiles and enables studies of the transition into and out of MP ELM suppression at constant density. A limit cycle behavior of edge rotation and MP amplitude persists under these conditions. The third control scheme combines MPs and gas puffs as actuators to perform pedestal density trajectory control to access Super high confinement mode (H-mode) and furthermore, allowing the integration of a radiative divertor in this regime. While MPs mainly impact the pedestal top density, the control scheme allows to loosen the tight coupling of pedestal top and separatrix density evolution.With respect to ITER, the achieved results emphasize the need for an advanced control system to keep MP amplitude close to but above the ELM suppression threshold at all times, enabling high confinement and, respectively, at high fusion energy gain factor (Q). Furthermore, pedestal control enables detailed physics studies in present-day tokamaks and allows the exploration of core-edge integrated plasma scenarios.

Predictive multi-channel flux-driven modelling to optimise ICRH tungsten control and fusion performance in JET

The evolution of the JET high performance hybrid scenario, including central accumulation of the tungsten (W) impurity, is reproduced with predictive multi-channel integrated modelling over multiple confinement times using first-principle based core transport models. Eight transport channels () are modelled predictively, with self-consistent sources, radiation and magnetic equilibrium, yielding a system with multiple non-linearities: This system can reproduce the observed radiative temperature collapse after several confinement times. W is transported inward by neoclassical convection driven by the main ion density gradients and enhanced by poloidal asymmetries due to centrifugal acceleration. The slow evolution of the bulk density profile sets the timescale for W accumulation. Modelling this phenomenon requires a turbulent transport model capable of accurately predicting particle and momentum transport (QuaLiKiz) and a neoclassical transport model including the effects of poloidal asymmetries (NEO) coupled to an integrated plasma simulator (JINTRAC). The modelling capability is applied to optimise the available actuators to prevent W accumulation, and to extrapolate in power and pulse length. Central NBI heating is preferred for high performance, but gives central deposition of particles and torque which increase the risk of W accumulation by increasing density peaking and poloidal asymmetry. The primary mechanism for ICRH to control W in JET is via its impact through turbulence in reducing main ion density peaking (which drives inward neoclassical convection), increased temperature screening and turbulent W diffusion. The anisotropy from ICRH also reduces poloidal asymmetry, but this effect is negligible in high rotation JET discharges. High power ICRH near the axis can sensitively mitigate against W accumulation, and dominant ion heating (e.g. He-3 minority) is predicted to provide more resilience to W accumulation than dominant electron heating (e.g. H minority) in the JET hybrid scenario. Extrapolation to DT plasmas finds 17.5 MW of fusion power and improved confinement compared to DD, due to reduced ion-electron energy exchange, and increased Ti/Te stabilisation of ITG instabilities. The turbulence reduction in DT increases density peaking and accelerates the arrival of W on axis; this may be mitigated by reducing the penetration of the beam particle source with an increased pedestal density.

Investigation of the dependency of JET midplane separatrix density as a function of engineering parameters

AbstractMidplane separatrix density is a crucial parameter in tokamaks since it strongly impacts divertor conditions. Scaling midplane separatrix density, ne, SEP, and pedestal density, ne, PED, as function of engineering parameters such as auxiliary heating Pinjected, toroidal magnetic field BT, and plasma poloidal current Ip are relevant to observe the effect of tuning these parameters on, for example, quality of confinement and divertor regime governed by ne, PED and ne, SEP, respectively. Thus, a dataset of JET H‐mode pulses performed with Iter like wall (ILW) has been analysed. Midplane density data are collected from an HRTS (high‐resolution Thomson scattering) diagnostic and ne, SEP is determined using the power balance method. Parallel heat flux model is chosen using transport code SOLEDGE2D (S2D) applying power balance method over a simulated ne, SEP and Te, SEP profiles to obtain separatrix positions. The parameters are averaged over time windows with order of (85–185 ms) and the magnetic configuration has been fixed to avoid divertor geometrical effect on ne, SEP determination, configuration chosen is corner–corner. A ratio between separatrix density and pedestal density at outer midplane ranges between 0.3 and 0.7 on the data set. A scaling law of ne, SEP/ne, PED is obtained as function of Pinjected, BT, and IP.