The behaviour of tungsten in the core of hybrid scenario plasmas in JET with the ITER-like wall is analysed and modelled with a combination of neoclassical and gyrokinetic codes. In these discharges, good confinement conditions can be maintained only for the first 2–3 s of the high power phase. Later W accumulation is regularly observed, often accompanied by the onset of magneto-hydrodynamical activity, in particular neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs), both of which have detrimental effects on the global energy confinement. The dynamics of the accumulation process is examined, taking into consideration the concurrent evolution of the background plasma profiles, and the possible onset of NTMs. Two time slices of a representative discharge, before and during the accumulation process, are analysed with two independent methods, in order to reconstruct the W density distribution over the poloidal cross-section. The same time slices are modelled, computing both neoclassical and turbulent transport components and consistently including the impact of centrifugal effects, which can be significant in these plasmas, and strongly enhance W neoclassical transport. The modelling closely reproduces the observations and identifies inward neoclassical convection due to the density peaking of the bulk plasma in the central region as the main cause of the accumulation. The change in W neoclassical convection is directly produced by the transient behaviour of the main plasma density profile, which is hollow in the central region in the initial part of the high power phase of the discharge, but which develops a significant density peaking very close to the magnetic axis in the later phase. The analysis of a large set of discharges provides clear indications that this effect is generic in this scenario. The unfavourable impact of the onset of NTMs on the W behaviour, observed in several discharges, is suggested to be a consequence of a detrimental combination of the effects of neoclassical transport and of the appearance of an island.

Abstract:JET underwent a transformation from a full carbon-dominated tokamak to a full metallic device with the ITER-like wall combination for the activated phase with Beryllium main chamber and Tungsten divertor. The ITER-Like Wall (ILW) experiment at JET provides an ideal test bed for ITER and shall demonstrate as primary goals the plasma compatibility with metallic walls and the reduction in fuel retention. We report on a set of experiments ( = 2.0 , = 2.0 − 2.4 , = 0.2 − 0.4) in different confinement and plasma conditions with global gas balance analysis demonstrating a strong reduction of the long term retention rate by a factor ten with respect to carbon references. All experiments have been executed in a series of identical plasma discharges in order to achieve maximum plasma duration until the analysis limit of the active gas handling system has been reached. The composition analysis shows high purity of the recovered gas, typically 99% D. For typical L-mode discharges ( = 0.5 ), type III ( = 5.0 ), and type I ELMy H-mode plasmas ( = 12.0 ) a drop of the retention rate normalised to the operational time in divertor configuration has been measured from 1.27 × 10 has been obtained with the ILW. The observed reduction by one order of magnitude confirms the expected predictions concerning the plasma-facing material change in ITER and widens the operation without active cleaning in the DT phase in comparison to a full carbon device.

No abstract

In 2003, the performance of the ‘hybrid’ regime was successfully validated in JET experiments up to βN = 2.8 at low toroidal field (1.7 T), with plasma triangularity and normalized Larmor radius (ρ*) corresponding to identical ASDEX Upgrade discharges. Stationary conditions have been achieved with the fusion figure of merit ( ) reaching 0.42 at q95 = 3.9. The JET discharges show similar MHD, edge and current profile behaviour, when compared with the ASDEX Upgrade. In addition, the JET experiments have extended the hybrid scenario operation at higher toroidal field of 2.4 T and lower ρ* towards the projected ITER values. Using this database, transport and confinement properties are characterized with respect to the standard H-mode regime. Moreover, trace tritium has been injected to assess the diffusion and convective coefficients of the fusion fuel. The maximization of confinement and stability properties provides, to this scenario, a good probability of achieving a high fusion gain at reduced plasma current for durations of up to 2000 s in ITER.

This paper reports the progress made at JET-ILW on integrating the requirements of the reference ITER baseline scenario with normalised confinement factor of 1, at a normalised pressure of 1.8 together with partially detached divertor whilst maintaining these conditions over many energy confinement time. The 2.5MA high triangularity ELMy H-modes are studied with two different divertor configurations. The power load reduction with N seeding is reported. The relationship between an increase in energy confinement and pedestal pressure with triangularity is investigated. The operational space of both plasma configurations is studied together the ELM energy losses and stability of the pedestal of unseeded and seeded plasmas.

The impact of carbon and beryllium/tungsten as plasma-facing components on plasma radiation, divertor power and particle fluxes, and plasma and neutral conditions in the divertors has been assessed in JET both experimentally and by simulations for plasmas in low confinement mode. In high-recycling conditions the studies show a 30% reduction in total radiation in the scrape-off layer when replacing carbon with beryllium in the main chamber and tungsten in the divertor. Correspondingly, at the low field side divertor plate a twofold increase in power conducted to the plate and a twofold increase in electron temperature at the strike point were measured. In low-recycling conditions the SOL was found to be nearly identical for both materials configurations. These observations are in qualitative agreement with predictions from the fluid edge code package EDGE2D/EIRENE. The rollover of the ion currents to both plates was measured to occur at 30% higher upstream densities and radiated power fraction in the Be/W configuration. Past rollover, it was possible to reduce the ion currents to the low field side targets by a factor of 2 and to operate in stable, detached conditions in the JET-ILW configuration; in the JET-C configuration the reduction was limited to 50%. Plasmas with low and high triangularity (and thus magnetic separation to the top of the device), and horizontal and vertical target configurations were investigated and compared to EDGE2D/EIRENE predictions.

Experiments on JET with a carbon-fibre composite wall have explored the reduction of steady-state power load in an ELMy H-mode scenario at high Greenwald fraction ∼0.8, constant power and close to the L to H transition. This paper reports a systematic study of power load reduction due to the effect of fuelling in combination with seeding over a wide range of pedestal density ((4–8) × 1019 m−3) with detailed documentation of divertor, pedestal and main plasma conditions, as well as a comparative study of two extrinsic impurity nitrogen and neon. It also reports the impact of steady-state power load reduction on the overall plasma behaviour, as well as possible control parameters to increase fuel purity. Conditions from attached to fully detached divertor were obtained during this study. These experiments provide reference plasmas for comparison with a future JET Be first wall and an all W divertor where the power load reduction is mandatory for operation.

An overview is given of the experimental method, the analysis technique and the results for trace tritium experiments conducted on the JET tokamak in 2003. Observations associated with events such as sawtooth collapses, neo-classical tearing modes and edge localized modes are described. Tritium transport is seen to approach neo-classical levels in the plasma core at high density and low q 95 , and in the transport barrier region of internal transport barrier (ITB) discharges. Tritium transport remains well above neo-classical levels in all other cases. The correlation of the measured tritium diffusion coefficient and convection velocity for normalized minor radii r/a = [0.65, 0.80] with the controllable parameters q 95 and plasma density are found to be consistent for all operational regimes (ELMy H-mode discharges with or without ion cyclotron frequency resonance heating, hybrid scenario and ITB discharges). Scaling with local physics parameters is best described by gyro-Bohm scaling with an additional inverse beta dependence.