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.

A comprehensive description of methods, suitable for solving the kinetic equation for fast ions and impurity species in tokamak plasmas using Monte Carlo approach, is presented. The described methods include Hamiltonian orbit-following in particle and guiding center phase space, test particle or guiding center solution of the kinetic equation applying stochastic differential equations in the presence of Coulomb collisions, neoclassical tearing modes and Alfvén eigenmodes as electromagnetic perturbations relevant to fast ions, together with plasma flow and atomic reactions relevant to impurity studies. Applying the methods, a complete reimplementation of the well-established minority species code ASCOT is carried out as a response both to the increase in computing power during the last twenty years and to the weakly structured growth of the code, which has made implementation of additional models impractical. Also, a benchmark between the previous code and the reimplementation is accomplished, showing good agreement between the codes. methods. In ASCOT4, we follow recent developments regarding these issues and treat the collisional and Hamiltonian parts consistently [7,8].

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The wall loads due to fusion alphas as well as neutral beam injection- and ICRF-generated fast ions were simulated for ITER reference scenario-2 and scenario-4 including the effects of ferritic inserts (FIs), test blanket modules (TBMs), and 3D wall with two limiter structures. The simulations were carried out using the Monte Carlo guiding-centre orbit-following code ASCOT. The FIs were found very effective in ameliorating the detrimental effects of the toroidal ripple: the fast ion wall loads are reduced practically to their negligible axisymmetric level. The thermonuclear alpha particles overwhelmingly dominate the wall power flux. In scenario-4 practically all the power goes to the limiters, while in scenario-2 the load is fairly evenly divided between the divertor and the limiter, with hardly any power flux to other components in the first wall. This is opposite to earlier results, where hot spots were observed with 2D wall (Tobita et al 2003 Fusion Eng. Des. 65 561–8). In contrast, uncompensated ripple leads to unacceptable peak power fluxes of 0.5 MW m−2 in scenario-2 and 1 MW m−2 in scenario-4, with practically all power hitting the limiters and substantial flux arriving even at the unprotected first wall components. The local TBM structures were found to perturb the magnetic field structure globally and lead to increased wall loads. However, the TBM simulation results overestimate the TBM contribution due to an over-simplification in the vacuum field. Therefore the TBM results should be considered as an upper limit.

A power-balance model, with radiation losses from impurities and neutrals, gives a unified description of the density limit (DL) of the stellarator, the L-mode tokamak, and the reversed field pinch (RFP). The model predicts a Sudo-like scaling for the stellarator, a Greenwald-like scaling, , for the RFP and the ohmic tokamak, a mixed scaling, , for the additionally heated L-mode tokamak. In a previous paper (Zanca et al 2017 Nucl. Fusion 57 056010) the model was compared with ohmic tokamak, RFP and stellarator experiments. Here, we address the issue of the DL dependence on heating power in the L-mode tokamak. Experimental data from high-density disrupted L-mode discharges performed at JET, as well as in other machines, are taken as a term of comparison. The model fits the observed maximum densities better than the pure Greenwald limit.