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Using the MARS-F code (Liu et al 2000 Phys. Plasmas 7 3681), the single fluid resistive MHD plasma response to applied n = 2 resonant magnetic perturbations is computed, for a plasma discharge in the ASDEX-Upgrade tokamak. The computation predicts strong kink amplification, as previously predicted in DIII-D (Haskey et al 2014 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 56 035005), which is strongly dependent on the toroidal phase shift between the upper and lower coils, ϕ Δ ul . In particular, edge localised low n peeling modes with poloidal mode numbers just above pitch resonance-a subset of the kink response-are amplified. The robustness of the amplified peeling response with respect to truncation of the X point is investigated, by recomputing the plasma response for a range of edge geometries. It is found that the computed peeling response, when plotted against the safety factor, is not sensitive to the numerical truncation near the X point. It is also predicted that near the plasma edge where resistivity is large, the pitch aligned components are finite and also strongly dependent on ϕ Δ ul . A previous proposal that the amplified peeling response may indirectly drive the pitch aligned components by spectral proximity (Lanctot et al 2013 Nucl. Fusion 53 083019), is investigated by numerically applying magnetic perturbations of a single poloidal harmonic, as a boundary condition at the plasma edge. It is found that poloidal harmonic coupling causes harmonics to couple to and drive harmonics directly beneath them spectrally, and also that the pitch aligned components can be driven by this mechanism. This suggests that it is quite possible that the amplified low n peeling response can drive the pitch aligned components when it is strongly amplified, which would alter the coil configuration for optimum plasma stochastization, with implications for ELM control by RMPs.

The role of the pedestal position on the pedestal performance has been investigated in AUG, JET-ILW and TCV. When the pedestal is peeling-ballooning (PB) limited, the three machines show a similar behaviour. The outward shift of the pedestal density leads to the outward shift of the pedestal pressure which, in turns, reduces the PB stability, degrades the pedestal confinement and reduces the pedestal width. Once the experimental density position is considered, the EPED model is able to correctly predict the pedestal height. An estimate of the impact of the density position on a ITER baseline scenario shows that the maximum reduction in the pedestal height is 10% while the reduction in the fusion power is between 10% and 40% depending on the assumptions for the core transport model used.When the pedestal is not PB limited, a different behaviour is observed. The outward shift of the density is still empirically correlated with the pedestal degradation but no change in the pressure position is observed and the PB model is not able to correctly predict the pedestal height. On the other hand, the outward shift of the density leads to a significant increase of η e (where η e is the ratio of density to temperature scale lengths, η e = L ne /L Te ) which leads to the increase of the growth rate of microinstabilities (mainly ETG and ITG) by 50%. This suggests that, when the pedestal is not PB limited, the increase in the turbulent transport due to the outward shift of the density might play an important role in the decrease of the pedestal performance.

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 MHD 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.

Properties of the I-mode confinement regime on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak are summarized. A weak dependence of the power threshold for the L-I transition on the toroidal magnetic field strength is found. During improved confinement, the edge radial electric field well deepens. Stability calculations show that the I-mode pedestal is peeling-ballooning stable. Turbulence investigations reveal strongly intermittent density fluctuations linked to the weakly coherent mode in the confined plasma, which become stronger as the confinement quality increases. Across all investigated structure sizes (k ⊥ ≈ 5 -12 cm −1 , with k ⊥ the perpendicular wavenumber of turbulent density fluctuations), the intermittent turbulence bursts are observed. Comparison with bolometry data shows that they move poloidally toward the X-point and finally end up in the divertor. This might be indicative that they play a role in inhibiting the density profile growth, such that no pedestal is formed in the edge density profile.

Toroidal computations are performed using the MARS-F code [Liu Y Q et al 2000 Phys.Plasmas 7 3681], in order to understand correlations between the plasma response and the observed mitigation of the edge localized modes (ELM) using resonant magnetic perturbation fields in ASDEX Upgrade. In particular, systematic numerical scans of the edge safety factor reveal that the amplitude of the resonant poloidal harmonic of the response radial magnetic field near the plasma edge, as well as the plasma radial displacement near the X-point, can serve as good indicators for predicting the optimal toroidal phasing between the upper and lower rows of coils in ASDEX Upgrade. The optimal coil phasing scales roughly linearly with the edge safety factor 95 q , for various choices of the toroidal mode number n=1-4 of the coil configuration. The optimal coil phasing is also predicted to vary with the upper triangularity of the plasma shape in ASDEX Upgrade. Furthermore, multiple resonance effects of the plasma response, with continuously varying 95 q , are computationally observed and investigated.

In ASDEX Upgrade (AUG), the normalised gyroradius ρ ⋆ was varied via a hydrogen isotope scan while keeping other dimensionless parameters constant. This was done in L-mode, to minimise the impact of pedestal stability on confinement. Power balance and perturbative transport analyses reveal that the electron heat transport is unaffected by the differences in isotope mass. Nonlinear simulations with the Gene code suggest that these L-mode discharges are ion temperature gradient (ITG) dominated. The different gyroradii due to the isotope mass do not necessarily result in a change of the predicted heat fluxes. This result is used in simulations with the Astra transport code to match the experimental profiles. In these simulations the experimental profiles and confinement times are reproduced with the same transport coefficients for hydrogen and deuterium plasmas. The mass only enters in the energy exchange term between electrons and ions. These numerical observations are supported by additional experiments which show a lower ion energy confinement compared to that of the electrons. Additionally, hydrogen and deuterium plasmas have a similar confinement when the energy exchange time between electrons and ions is matched. This strongly suggests that the observed isotope dependence in L-mode is not dominated by a gyroradius effect, but a consequence of the mass dependence in the collisional energy exchange between electrons and ions.

. A systematic investigation is carried out, considering various plasma and coil configurations as in the ELM control experiments. The low q plasmas, with q 95 ∼ 3.8 ( q 95 is the safety factor q value at 95% of the equilibrium poloidal flux), responding to low n (n is the toroidal mode number) field perturbations from each single row of the ELM coils, generates a core kink amplification effect. Combining two rows, with different toroidal phasing, thus leads to either cancellation or reinforcement of the core kink response, which in turn determines the poloidal location of the peak plasma surface displacement. The core kink response is typically weak for the n = 4 coil configuration at low q, or for the n = 2 configuration but at high q (q 95 ∼ 5.5). A phase shift of around 60 degrees for low q plasmas, and around 90 degrees for high q plasmas, is found in the coil phasing, between the plasma response field and the vacuum RMP field, that maximizes the edge resonant field component. This leads to an optimal coil phasing of about 100 (-100) degrees for low (high) q plasmas, that maximizes both the edge resonant field component and the plasma surface displacement near the X-point of the separatrix. A strong parallel sound wave damping moderately reduces the core kink response but has minor effect on the edge peeling response. For low q plasmas, modelling shows that both the resonant electromagnetic torque and the neoclassical toroidal viscous (NTV) torque (due to the presence of 3D magnetic field perturbations) contribute to the toroidal flow damping, in particular near the plasma edge region. For high q plasmas, however, significant amount of torque is also produced in the bulk plasma region, and the contributions from the electromagnetic, the NTV, and the torque associated with the Reynolds stress, all play significant roles.