Abstract.Progress, since the ITER Physics Basis publication, in understanding the processes that will determine the properties of the plasma edge and its interaction with material elements in ITER is described. Experimental areas where significant progress has taken place are : energy transport in the SOL in particular of the anomalous transport scaling, particle transport in the SOL that plays a major role in the interaction of diverted plasmas with the main chamber material elements, ELM energy deposition on material elements and the transport mechanism for the ELM energy from the main plasma to the plasma facing components, the physics of plasma detachment and neutral dynamics including the edge density profile structure and the control of plasma particle content and He removal, the erosion of low and high Z materials in fusion devices, their transport to the core plasma and their migration at the plasma edge including the formation of mixed materials, the processes determining the size and location of the retention of tritium in fusion devices and methods to remove it and the processes determining the efficiency of the various fuelling methods as well as their development towards the ITER requirements. This experimental progress has been accompanied by the development of modelling tools for the physical processes at the edge plasma and plasma-materials interaction and the further validation of these models by comparing their predictions with the new experimental results. Progress in the modelling development and validation has been mostly concentrated in the following areas : refinement of the predictions for ITER with plasma edge modelling codes by inclusion of detailed geometrical features of the divertor and the introduction of physical effects, which can play a 2 major role in determining the divertor parameters at the divertor for ITER conditions such as hydrogen radiation transport and neutral-neutral collisions, modelling of the ion orbits at the plasma edge, which can play a role in determining power deposition at the divertor target, models for plasma-materials and plasma dynamics interaction during ELMs and disruptions, models for the transport of impurities at the plasma edge to describe the core contamination by impurities and the migration of eroded materials at the edge plasma and its associated tritium retention and models for the turbulent processes that determine the anomalous transport of energy and particles across the SOL. The implications for the expected performance of the reference regimes in ITER, the operation of the ITER device and the lifetime of the plasma facing materials are discussed. Introduction.This chapter outlines the significant progress achieved since the ITER Physics Basis in understanding basic scrape-off layer (SOL) and divertor processes in a tokamak. The interaction of plasma with first-wall surfaces will have considerable impact on the performance of fusion plasmas, the lifetime of plasma facing components, and the retention of tritium in next step Burning Plasma E...
Abstract. Tungsten (W) has moved into the focus of fusion research as being a main candidate for the plasma facing components (PFC) of ITER and a future fusion reactor. A main ingredient for understanding the influence of W as a plasma impurity and its impact on the plasma is the spatially resolved, spectroscopic diagnosis of W. The focus of the experimental investigations at ASDEX Upgrade is on the most intense emissions of W-ions (about I-like W
Abstract:Plasma-wall interaction (PWI) is important for the material choice in ITER and for the plasma scenarios compatible with material constraints. In this paper different aspects of the PWI are assessed in their importance for the initial wall materials choice: CFC for the strikepoint tiles, W in the divertor and baffle and Be on the first wall. Further material options are addressed for comparison, such as W divertor / Be first wall and all-W or all-C.One main parameter in this evaluation is the particle flux to the main vessel wall. One detailed plasma scenario exists for a Q=10 ITER discharge [ 1 ] which was taken as the basis of further erosion and tritium retention evaluations. As the assessment of steady state wall fluxes from a scaling of present fusion devices indicates that global wall fluxes may be a factor of 4±3 higher, this margin has been adopted as uncertainty of the scaling.With these wall and divertor fluxes, important PWI processes such as erosion and tritium accumulation have been evaluated:• It was found that the steady state erosion is no problem for the lifetime of plasma-facing divertor components. Be wall erosion may pose a problem in case of a concentration of the wall fluxes to small wall areas. ELM erosion may drastically limit the PFC lifetime if ELMs are not mitigated to energies below 0.5 MJ.• Dust generation is still a process which requires more attention. Conversion from gross or net erosion to dust and the assessment of dust on hot surfaces need to be investigated.• For low-Z materials the build-up of the tritium inventory is dominated by co-deposition with eroded wall atoms.• For W, where erosion and tritium co-deposition are small, the implantation, diffusion and bulk trapping constitute the dominant retention processes. First extrapolations with models based on laboratory data show small contributions to the inventory. For later ITER phases and the extrapolation to DEMO additional tritium trapping sites due to neutron-irradiation damage need to be taken into account.Finally the expected values for erosion and tritium retention are compared to the ITER administrative limits for the lifetime, dust and tritium inventory.
This paper reports the successful installation of the JET ITER-like Wall and the realisation of its technical objectives. It also presents an overview of the planned experimental programme which has been optimised to exploit the new wall and other JET enhancement in 2011/12. IntroductionThe ITER reference materials [pitts] have been tested in isolation in tokamaks, plasma simulators, ion beams and high heat flux test beds. However, an integrated test demonstrating both acceptable tritium retention, predicted to be one to two orders of magnitude lower than for a carbon wall [roth], and an ability to operate a large high power tokamak within the limits set by these materials has not yet been carried out. The ITER-like Wall now installed in JET by remote handling comprises solid beryllium limiters and a combination of bulk W and Wcoated CFC divertor tiles.Work is also well advanced in defining the 2011/12 JET experimental programme and setting up the teams. A phased approach will be adopted which maximises the scientific output early in the programme on the basic materials and fuel retention questions whilst minimising the risk associated with operation in an all metal machine. However, re-establishing H-modes at similar power levels to those with the carbon walls is a priority for establishing a reference database. The JET upgrades also include an increase in neutral beam heating power, up to 35MW for 20s [ciric], this has led to a requirement that the most critical first wall Be and W components are monitored in real time by an appropriate imaging protection system [Alves, Jouve, Stephen]. In the main chamber, an array of thermocouples has been fitted to unambiguously monitor the bulk temperature of critical tiles. Before this upgrade, only a divertor system was available which proved essential for interpretation of IR data [Eich] and this will be even more the case with an all metal wall due to reflection and uncertain emissivity. Safe expansion of operating space will also be a priority. Experiments will have to be carefully managed if they have the potential to jeopardise interpretation of the long term samples which are planned to be removed in a 2012 intervention. Here the concern is that
The tungsten programme in ASDEX Upgrade is pursued towards a full high-Z device. The spectroscopic diagnostic and the cooling factor of W have been extended and refined. The W-coated surfaces represent now a fraction of 65 % (24.8 m 2). The only two major components which are not yet coated are the strikepoint region of the lower divertor as well as the limiters at the low field side. While extending the W surfaces, the W concentration and the discharge behaviour have changed gradually pointing to critical issues when operating with a W wall: anomalous transport in the plasma centre should not be too low, otherwise neoclassical accumulation can occur. A very successful remedy is the addition of central RF heating at the 20-30% level. Regimes with low ELM activity show increased impurity concentration over the whole plasma radius. These discharges can be cured by increasing the ELM frequency through pellet ELM pacemaking or by higher heating power. Moderate gas puffing also mitigates the impurity influx and penetration, however at the expense of lower confinement. The erosion yield at the low field side guard limiter can be as high as 10 3 and fast particle losses from NBI were identified to contribute a significant part to the W sputtering. Discharges run in the upper, W coated divertor do not show higher W concentrations than comparable discharges in the lower C-based divertor.
Feedback control of the divertor power load by means of nitrogen seeding has been developed into a routine operational tool in the all-tungsten clad ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. For heating powers above about 12 MW, its use has become inevitable to protect the divertor tungsten coating under boronized conditions. The use of nitrogen seeding is accompanied by improved energy confinement due to higher core plasma temperatures, which more than compensates the negative effect of plasma dilution by nitrogen on the neutron rate. This paper describes the technical details of the feedback controller. A simple model for its underlying physics allows the prediction of its behaviour and the optimization of the feedback gain coefficients used. Storage and release of nitrogen in tungsten surfaces were found to have substantial impact on the behaviour of the seeded plasma, resulting in increased nitrogen consumption with unloaded walls and a latency of nitrogen release over several discharges after its injection. Nitrogen is released from tungsten plasma facing components with moderate surface temperature in a sputtering-like process; therefore no uncontrolled excursions of the nitrogen wall release are observed. Overall, very stable operation of the high-Z tokamak is possible with nitrogen seeding, where core radiative losses are avoided due to its low atomic charge Z and a high ELM frequency is maintained.
Abstract. The cooling factor of W is evaluated using state of the art data for line radiation and an ionization balance which has been benchmarked with experiment. For the calculation of line radiation, level-resolved calculations were performed with the Cowan code to obtain the electronic structure and excitation cross sections (plane-wave Born approximation). The data were processed by a collisional radiative model to obtain electron density dependent emissions. These data were then combined with the radiative power derived from recombination rates and Bremsstrahlung to obtain the total cooling factor. The effect of uncertainties in the recombination rates on the cooling factor were studied and were identified to be of secondary importance. The new cooling factor is benchmarked, by comparisons of the line radiation to spectral measurements as well as to a direct measurement of the cooling factor. Additionally, a less detailed calculation using a configuration averaged model was performed. It was used to benchmark the level-resolved calculations and to improve the prediction on radiation power from line radiation for ionization stages which are computationally challenging. The obtained values for the cooling factor validate older predictions from literature. Its ingredients and the absolute value are consistent with the existing experimental results regarding the value itself, the spectral distibution of emissions and the ionization equilibrium. A table of the cooling factor versus electron temperature is provided. Finally, the cooling factor is used to investigate the operational window of a fusion reactor with W as intrinsic impurity. The minimum value of ¤ ¦ ¥ § © , for which a thermonuclear burn is possible, is increased by 20% for a W concentration of " !
ASDEX Upgrade has successfully started the second experimental campaign with a full tungsten coverage of the plasma facing components and without using a boronisation for machine conditioning. The tungsten erosion at all relevant positions in the main chamber and the divertor was investigated. The outer divertor is by far the strongest source region, especially in discharges with high divertor temperature in-between ELMs. In the main chamber, the central column is usually the first limiting structure and produces then larger W erosion fluxes than the outboard limiters. Nevertheless, the tungsten influx from the outboard limiters has a much stronger effect on the tungsten content in the confined plasma. An increase of the available power from the fly-wheel generator allowed for improved H-mode operation at 1 MA, and H factors in the range of 1.2 could be achieved at acceptable W concentrations of about 2¢10 .
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