Turbulent Transport and the Scrape-off-layer Width

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2011

OSTI ID:1037044

Myra, J R ^[1]; Russell, D A ^[1]; Ahn, J W ^[2]; D'Ippolito, D A ^[1]; Maingi, Rajesh ^[3]; Maqueda, R J ^[4]; Lundberg, D P ^[5]; Stotler, D P ^[5]; Zweben, S J ^[5]; Umansky, M ^[6]

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1. Lodestar Research Corporation
2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
3. ORNL
4. Nova Photonics, Princeton, NJ
5. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)
6. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)

The two-dimensional fluid turbulence code SOLT is employed to study the role of midplane turbulence on the scrape-off-layer (SOL) heat flux width of tokamak plasmas. The physics simulated includes curvature-driven-interchange modes, sheath losses, and perpendicular turbulent diffusive and convective (blob) transport. Midplane SOL profiles of density, temperature and parallel heat flux are obtained from the simulation and compared with experimental results from the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) to study the scaling of the heat flux width with power and plasma current. It is concluded that midplane turbulence is the main contributor to the SOL width for the low power ELM-free H-mode discharges studied, while additional physics is required to explain the plasma current scaling of the SOL width observed experimentally in higher power discharges. Additional simulations predict a transition to a convectively-dominated SOL at critical values of power and connection length.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: SC USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1037044
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
HEAT FLUX
PLASMA SCRAPE-OFF LAYER
SIMULATION
SOLS
TRANSPORT
TURBULENCE
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS