A new regime of runaway discharges has been found in TCABR (Tokamak Chauffage Alfvén Brésilien). This regime is obtained by initiating the discharge with low filling pressure and, after the initial current rise, maintaining a large filling rate. The line density reaches a maximum value around 2 × 10 19 m −3 , during the current ramp-up phase, and then drops by a factor of around four in the quasi-stationary phase of the discharge, when a new regime is achieved. The most distinctive features of this regime, as compared to 'conventional' runaway discharges reported in the literature, are (i) maintenance of the runaway discharge, with the plasma current almost entirely provided by the runaway beam, in a cold background plasma and with strong neutral gas injection; (ii) enhancement of the relaxation instability with strong spikes in the Hα emission and loop voltage correlated with sawtooth relaxation of the line density; and (iii) plasma detachment from the limiter. A simple phenomenological model, based upon straightforward particle and energy balance calculations, is proposed to explain the experimental observations. According to this model, the plasma is rather cold and the short pulses of gas ionization and the related density spikes are due to sudden plasma heating caused by the relaxation instability. Furthermore, it seems that the runaway generation for the conditions of the experiments can be explained only if the secondary generation process is invoked.
The ergodic magnetic limiter is a device designed to generate a cold boundary layer of chaotic magnetic field lines at the peripheral region of a tokamak, with the main purpose of reducing the deleterious effects of the plasma-wall interaction. In the TCABR tokamak an ergodic limiter was constructed and recently installed inside the vacuum chamber. We developed a theoretical model for the action of an ergodic magnetic limiter in a large aspect-ratio tokamak taking into account the finite width of the limiter. The theoretical results are in good agreement with measurements of the vacuum magnetic field created by the limiter. Poincaré maps of field line flow are computed to reveal the resulting magnetic field line structure due to the ergodic limiter and show that the operation of the ergodic limiter in the TCABR tokamak is feasible and results in a chaotic boundary layer for limiter currents of about 6% of the plasma current.
Collisional plasma rotation in the Tokamak Chauffage Alfvén Brésilien (TCABR) tokamak [J. H. F. Severo, I. C. Nascimento, V. S. Tsypin, and R. M. O. Galvão, Nucl. Fusion 43, 1047 (2003)] has been experimentally studied. It was found that the measured plasma poloidal rotation velocity agrees within error limits with neoclassical theoretical predictions, and toroidal velocity with experimental results obtained in analogous tokamaks, almost everywhere along the minor radius r, except for measurements at r/a≃0.56 and r/a≃0.89 (the minor radius of TCABR tokamak a=18 cm). For the first point, the measured plasma rotation velocities are higher than the velocity of the background plasma, respectively ∼30% and ∼10% for the poloidal and toroidal rotation velocities. Using a set of 22 Mirnov coils displaced poloidally, magnetic field perturbations were measured in shots adjusted to reproduce the ones of the previous plasma rotation measurements, and the results confirm that in the region r/a≃0.89 the plasma rotates together with the magnetic island (3,1).
We investigate plasma turbulence at the scrape-off layer of TCABR tokamak. We apply a power spectral analysis to the magnetic Mirnov oscillations and electrostatic fluctuations, to quantify statistical properties and to estimate the turbulence-driven radial-particle flux. A distinctive peculiarity is the modulation of electrostatic turbulence by the Mirnov oscillations shown by the partial superposition of the frequency power spectra of these two oscillations. This characteristic allows us to investigate any possible influence of the Mirnov oscillations on particle transport. In fact, a significant part of this transport occurs at the Mirnov frequencies. The effect of this modulation is also analyzed for discharges modified by external perturbations, a DC biased electrode or an ergodic magnetic limiter. : 52.35.Mw, 52.35.Ra,
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