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Title: Identifying the location of the OMP separatrix in DIII-D using power accounting

Journal Article · · Nuclear Fusion
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [3];  [4];  [6]
  1. Univ. of Toronto, Toronto (Canada)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  4. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  6. Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

In order to identify reliable scalings for the scrape-off layer (SOL) power width it is necessary to know the location of the separatrix in divertor tokamaks as accurately as possible, specifically its location at the outside midplane (OMP) the standard reference location. Two methods are described which use power accounting to improve the accuracy of identifying the location of the OMP separatrix. The first uses the infrared-measured deposited power profile at the outer target as the primary input, the ' $$P_{{\rm SOL}}^{{\rm exhaust}}$$ method'. The second uses the measured power input to the SOL, obtained by subtracting the power radiated from inside the separatrix from the total heating power, the ' $$P_{{\rm SOL}}^{{\rm input}}$$ method'. Furthermore, these two power accounting methods are illustrated with the examples of 21 H-mode DIII-D discharges. High spatial resolution Thomson scattering measured profiles of ne and Te for the main SOL near the OMP are also used as primary input to the analysis; only between-edge localized mode data are used here. The Thomson profiles are used to calculate the electron parallel conducted heat flux profiles which are then matched to the measured $$P_{{\rm SOL}}^{{\rm exhaust}}$$ and $$P_{{\rm SOL}}^{{\rm input}}$$ by adjusting the location of the OMP separatrix relative to that of the Thomson data. For these attached discharges, it is found that the values of $$R_{{\rm sep}}^{{\rm omp}}$$ given by the two power accounting methods agree to within ~1 mm of each other and also to within ~1 mm of the values given by the 'standard DIII-D method' described by Porter et al (1998 Phys. Plasmas 5 1410). Lastly, the shifted $$R_{{\rm sep}}^{{\rm omp}}$$ results in only modest changes to the values of ne and Te at the OMP separatrix relative to the 'standard' values, increasing $$n_{{\rm e}}^{{\rm sep}}$$ by 8% and $$T_{{\rm e}}^{{\rm sep}}$$ by 20%.

Research Organization:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-04ER54698; AC05-00OR22725; AC05-06OR23100; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-07ER54917; AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1373734
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1266016; OSTI ID: 1542115
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-736421
Journal Information:
Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 55, Issue 9; ISSN 0029-5515
Publisher:
IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 33 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (10)

The generalized Balescu-Lenard collision Operator journal April 1988
Initial results of the high resolution edge Thomson scattering upgrade at DIII-D journal October 2012
Finite element modelling of transport in a tokamak edge and divertor journal May 2002
Design and operation of the multipulse Thomson scattering diagnostic on DIII‐D (invited) journal October 1992
Multi-machine comparisons of H-mode separatrix densities and edge profile behaviour in the ITPA SOL and Divertor Physics Topical Group journal March 2005
Analysis of a multi-machine database on divertor heat fluxes journal May 2012
Inter-ELM Power Decay Length for JET and ASDEX Upgrade: Measurement and Comparison with Heuristic Drift-Based Model journal November 2011
The Plasma Boundary of Magnetic Fusion Devices book January 2000
The Plasma Boundary of Magnetic Fusion Devices journal January 2001
Characterization of the separatrix plasma parameters in DIII-D journal May 1998

Cited By (7)

OMFIT Tokamak Profile Data Fitting and Physics Analysis journal January 2018
Poloidal asymmetry in the narrow heat flux feature in the TCV scrape-off layer journal June 2017
Compatibility of separatrix density scaling for divertor detachment with H-mode pedestal operation in DIII-D journal July 2017
Relating the near SOL transport with plasma properties of the confined edge region in ASDEX Upgrade journal September 2018
Parameter dependences of the separatrix density in nitrogen seeded ASDEX Upgrade H-mode discharges journal February 2018
Basic physical processes and reduced models for plasma detachment journal March 2018
A review of direct experimental measurements of detachment journal February 2018