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Title: Density limit studies on DIII-D

Conference ·
OSTI ID:639803
 [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
  2. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); and others

The authors have studied the processes limiting plasma density and successfully achieved discharges with density {approximately}50% above the empirical Greenwald density limit with H-mode confinement. This was accomplished by density profile control, enabled through pellet injection and divertor pumping. By examining carefully the criterion for MARFE formation, the authors have derived an edge density limit with scaling very similar to Greenwald scaling. Finally, they have looked in detail at the first and most common density limit process in DIII-D, total divertor detachment, and found that the local upstream separatrix density (n{sub e}{sup sep,det}) at detachment onset (partial detachment) increases with the scrape-off layer heating power, P{sub heat}, i.e., n{sub e}{sup sep,det} {approximately} P{sub heat}{sup 0.76}. This is in marked contrast to the line-average density at detachment which is insensitive to the heating power. The data are in reasonable agreement with the Borass model, which predicted that the upstream density at detachment would increase as P{sub heat}{sup 0.7}.

Research Organization:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-89ER51114; AC05-96OR22464; AC04-94AL85000; FG03-95ER54294
OSTI ID:
639803
Report Number(s):
GA-A22873; CONF-980560-; ON: DE98006222; TRN: 98:007947
Resource Relation:
Conference: 13. international conference on plasma surface interactions, San Diego, CA (United States), 18-22 May 1998; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1998
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English