High Field Side Pellet Injection Research Articles

On benchmarking of simulations of particle transport in ITER

We report results of benchmarking of core particle transport simulations by a collection of codes widely used in transport modelling of tokamak plasmas. Our analysis includes formulation of transport equations, difference between electron and ion solvers, comparison of modules of the pellet and edge gas fuelling on the ITER baseline scenario. During the first phase of benchmarking we address the particle transport effects in the stationary phase. Firstly, simulations are performed with identical sources, sinks, transport coefficients, and boundary conditions prescribed in the flattop H-mode phase. The transformation of ion particle transport equations is introduced so to directly compare their results to electron transport solvers. Secondly, the pellet fuelling models are benchmarked in various conditions to evaluate the dependency of the pellet deposition on the pellet volume, injection side, pedestal, and separatrix parameters. Thirdly, edge gas fuelling is benchmarked to assess sensitivities of source profile predictions to uncertainties in plasma conditions and detailed model assumptions. At the second phase, we address particle transport effects in the time-evolving plasma including the current ramp-up to the ramp-down phase. The ion and the electron solvers are benchmarked together. Differences between the simulation results of the solvers are investigated in terms of equilibrium, grid resolution, radial coordinate, radial grid distribution, and plasma volume evolution term. We found that the selection of the radial coordinate can yield prominent differences between the solvers mainly due to differences in the edge grid distribution. The simulations reveal that electron and ion solvers predict noticeably different density peaking for the same diffusion and pinch velocity while with the peaked profile of helium, expected in fusion reactors. The fuelling benchmarking shows that gas puffing is not efficient for core fuelling in H-modes and density control should be done by the high field side pellet injection in contrast to present machines.

A New Pellet Injection System for HL-2A

A new pellet injector based on a piston-type extruder and a guide tube for magnetic high-field side (HFS) injection has been developed for HL-2A. Preliminary experimental results have been obtained by pellet injection. In this paper, the mechanisms of the pellet injector and the guide tube for HFS injection are described. Experimental results of pellet edge-localized mode triggering and HFS pellet injection are also presented.

High density, high performance high-confinement-mode plasmas in the Joint European Torus (JET)

Recent experiments at the Joint European Torus [Rebut et al., Fusion Eng. Des. 22, 7 (1993)] aim to improve confinement quality in high-confinement-mode (H-mode) plasmas at high densities. Energy confinement time as predicted by the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER-H98(y,2) scaling at densities near or in excess of 85% of the Greenwald density limit scaling has been obtained by (i) strong plasma shaping (triangularity 0.35<δ<0.5), or (ii) impurity seeding, or (iii) high-field side pellet injection. Slow peaking of central density without confinement degradation is observed. Loss of sawteeth and core impurity accumulation is prevented by central ion cyclotron resonance heating. In high triangularity and impurity seeded plasmas, reduction of average power loss associated with type I edge localized modes (ELMs) is found which is attributed to the occurrence of additional losses in between ELMs. Broad band magnetic fluctuations are seen which are reminiscent of regimes with small ELMs in other tokamaks. Plasma configurations have been varied to find best combinations of edge pedestal parameters and small ELM losses.

High β plasmoid formation, drift and striations during pellet ablation in ASDEX Upgrade

The ablated material of a frozen hydrogen isotope pellet which is injected into a hot tokamak plasma forms a high β plasmoid. This diamagnetic plasmoid is accelerated to the magnetic low field side of the torus. The high β plasmoid drift was directly observed byan optical diagnostic with high space and time resolution. Spectroscopic measurements of the emitted light allowed the density and temperature of the ablation cloud, and for the first time also of the drifting plasmoids, to be determined. The experiments give a newinsight into the dynamics of the formation of striations during the pelletablation; these striations cause the separation of the ablated material into a sequence of separated, drifting plasmoids. The influence of the drift on the mass deposition profile for high field side pellet injection is discussed. The plasmoid dynamics even influences the radial pellet motion, most probably owing to a rocket effect. The physical principles of the high β plasmoid drift are discussed and compared with the experimental observations.

Improved core fueling with high field side pellet injection in the DIII-D tokamak

The capability to inject deuterium pellets from the magnetic high field side (HFS) has been added to the DIII-D tokamak [J. L. Luxon and L. G. Davis, Fusion Technol. 8, 441 (1985)]. It is observed that pellets injected from the HFS lead to deeper mass deposition than identical pellets injected from the outside midplane, in spite of a factor of 4 lower pellet speed. HFS injected pellets have been used to generate peaked density profile plasmas [peaking factor (ne(0)/〈ne〉) in excess of 3] that develop internal transport barriers when centrally heated with neutral beam injection. The transport barriers are formed in conditions where Te∼Ti and q(0) is above unity. The peaked density profiles, characteristic of the internal transport barrier, persist for several energy confinement times. The pellets are also used to investigate transport barrier physics and modify plasma edge conditions. Transitions from L- to H-mode have been triggered by pellets, effectively lowering the H-mode threshold power by 2.4 MW. Pellets injected into H-mode plasmas are found to trigger edge localized modes (ELMs). ELMs triggered from the low field side (LFS) outside midplane injected pellets are of significantly longer duration than from HFS injected pellets.

Overview of ASDEX Upgrade results

The closed ASDEX Upgrade Divertor II, `LYRA', is capable of handling heating powers of up to 20 MW or P/R of 12 MW/m, owing to a reduction of the maximum heat flux to the target plates by more than a factor of 2 compared with the open Divertor I. This reduction is caused by high radiative losses from carbon and hydrogen inside the divertor region and is in agreement with B2-EIRENE modelling predictions. At medium densities in the H mode, the type I ELM behaviour shows no dependence on the heating method (NBI, ICRH). ASDEX Upgrade-JET dimensionless identity experiments showed compatibility of the L-H transition with core physics constraints, while in the H mode confinement, inconsistencies with the invariance principle were established. At high densities close to the Greenwald density, the MHD limited edge pressures, the influence of divertor detachment on separatrix parameters and increasing edge transport lead to limited edge densities and finally to temperatures below the critical edge temperatures for H mode. This results in a drastic increase of the H mode threshold power and an upper H mode density limit with gas puff refuelling. The H mode confinement degradation approaching this density limit is caused by the ballooning mode limited edge pressures and `stiff' temperature profiles relating core and edge temperatures. Repetitive high field side pellet injection allows for H mode operation well above the Greenwald density; moreover, higher confinement than with gas fuelling is found up to the highest densities. Neoclassical tearing modes limit the achievable β depending on the collisionality at the resonant surface. In agreement with the polarization current model, the onset β is found to be proportional to the ion gyroradius in the collisionless regime, while higher collisionalities are stabilizing. The fractional energy loss connected with saturated modes at high pressures is about 25%. A reduction of neoclassical mode amplitude and an increase of β have been demonstrated by using phased ECRH and ECCD in the O point of islands. Advanced tokamak operation with internal transport barriers for both ions and electrons has been achieved with flat shear profiles and q0 > 1 or with reversed shear and qmin > 2. With flat shear a stationary H mode scenario was maintained for 40 confinement times and several internal skin times with βN = 2 and HITERL-89P = 2.4, where fishbones keep q0 at 1. βN is limited by either neoclassical tearing modes in the case of flat shear or kink modes with reversed shear.