Dust and powder in fusion plasmas: recent developments in theory, modeling, and experiments

Abstract

In this paper, we present a brief historic overview of the research on dust in fusion devices with carbon plasma-facing components and then highlight the most recent developments in the post-carbon era of the field. In particular, we consider how the metallic dust form, mobilize, and interact with fusion plasmas and plasma facing components. Achievements in wall conditioning and associated anomalous plasma transport modification, including ELM suppression, with the powder injection technique is another focus of the paper. Capabilities of the state-of-art simulation tools to describe different aspects of dust in fusion devices are exemplified and new directions for future dust studies are brought forward.

Editorial : Reviews of Modern Plasma Physics: Volume 6

“…Topical collection "Novel Aspects of Dusty Plasma Physics (DP)" is organized by Abhijit Sen and Lin I and published two articles in 2021 (Melzer et al 2021;Hu and Zhang 2021) and three articles in 2022 (Ratynskaia et al 2022;Jiang and Du 2022;Bandyopadhyay and Sen 2022).…”

Observations of dust fragmentations in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak

“…2009; Ratynskaia et al. 2020; Ratynskaia, Bortolon & Krasheninnikov 2022 a ). The melting of the surface layer on the PFCs and delamination of the co-deposits are considered to be the main reasons for the generation of dust particles.…”

“…The interaction between the edge of a fusion plasma and the plasma-facing components (PFCs) is one of the most important issues in fusion (Sharpe, Petti & Bartels 2002;Grisolia et al 2009;Ratynskaia, Bortolon & Krasheninnikov 2022a). The melting of the surface layer on the PFCs and delamination of the co-deposits are considered to be the main reasons for the generation of dust particles.…”

Wall cratering upon high velocity normal dust impact

“…The presence of dust in fusion devices has important operational and safety implications, especially in future fusion reactors where metallic dust generation could scale up by orders of magnitude compared to existing devices and nuclear licensing requirements impose several restrictions on the total and hot dust inventories [1,2,3]. Hence, the understanding and modelling of dust transport, production, re-mobilization, adhesion and survivability have received wide attention within the fusion community [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Dust-wall mechanical impacts have emerged as an essential feature of dust dynamics in tokamaks [10].…”