Comparison between SOLPS-ITER and B2.5-Eunomia for simulating Magnum-PSI

Abstract

The interaction among plasma, neutrals and surfaces in fusion reactors is of immense importance for heat and particle control, specially for the next generation of devices. Heat loads of 10 MW m-2 are expected for steady state operation at ITER and up to 20 MW m-2 in slow transient situations. To study the complex physics appearing between the plasma and the divertor material, as well as techniques for heat flux mitigation, plasma linear devices are employed. Magnum-PSI, located at DIFFER, can reproduce heat and particle loads expected at ITER. However, due to the complexity of the plasma-wall interaction, numerical models are required to better understand the experiments and to extrapolate the results to a tokamak divertor configuration. For tokamak geometries, SOLPS-ITER (formerly known as B2.5-Eirene) is employed to solve the plasma and neutral distribution in a coupled way. However, the utilization of this code for linear devices is not straight forward. Thus, a neutral module was developed with linear devices in mind, named Eunomia. Nevertheless, there is still a relevant interest in using SOLPS-ITER with linear devices, as it allows to easily transfer knowledge about relevant atomic and molecular processes close to the surface and the effect of different mitigation techniques. This work presents a systematic comparison between the two neutral modules, Eirene and Eunomia, in stand-alone and coupled runs. Special attention is paid to the implementation of plasma-neutral interactions, in which both codes diverge significantly. The sources of particles and energy that are used by B2.5 in a coupled run are analysed. Significant differences in the implementation of electron impact ionization, molecular assisted recombination and proton-molecule elastic collisions lead to disparate sources of particles and energy and, in some cases, differences in the distribution of neutrals achieved by each code. Moreover, a double counting in proton-atom collisions was identified in Eunomia as a result of this analysis, artificially increasing the plasma-neutral sink of energy. These would lead to different plasma evolutions in coupled runs. Nevertheless, additional free parameters in both coupled code suites leave sufficient freedom to match experimental data. Additional data would be required to further constrain these parameters and the coupled solution.

Coupled simulations with SOLPS-ITER and B2.5-Eunomia for detachment experiments in Magnum-PSI

“…The plasma and neutral solutions for B2.5-Eunomia are the same as in [11]. In the high density scenario the cases have been re-run to account for the issue in double counting p + H collisions [16]. For each of these plasma scenarios, two neutral pressures in the target chamber are analysed in deep.…”

“…Although these differences are barely noticeable, they should be noted as they have a small impact in the final solution. However, the big difference between the two suites is still the different implementation of plasma-neutral processes explained in [16].…”

“…As stated in [16], Eirene and Eunomia use a different wall reflection model. Eunomia always assumes a thermal reflection of atoms and molecules.…”

“…out in the future to determine the impact of the distribution of vibrational levels in the simulation of Magnum-PSI. As stated in [16], Eirene and Eunomia implement some relevant plasma-neutral collision processes in a distinct way. This leads to significant differences in the sink and sources of particles, momentum and energy passed to B2.5 to generate a new plasma scenario.…”

“…The trend of peak electron density and temperature as a function of the target chamber's neutral pressure is studied for a wide range of values. The disparate neutral distributions and sources of particles and energy obtained in the standalone comparison of [16] result in completely different plasma states. Due to the free parameters present in the simulation of Magnum-PSI [11], both codes are able to reach plasma profiles close to the TS experimental data a few centimetres in front of the target.…”