ITER Test Blanket Module Error Field Simulation Experiments at DIII-D

Journal Article · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Nuclear Fusion

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0029-5515/51/10/103028· OSTI ID:1037099

Schaffer, M J ^[1]; Testa, D ^[2]; Snipes, J A ^[3]; Gohil, P ^[4]; De Vries, P ^[5]; Evans, T E ^[1]; Fenstermacher, M E ^[6]; Gao, X ^[7]; Garofalo, A ^[1]; Gates, D A ^[8]; Greenfield, C M ^[4]; Heidbrink, W ^[9]; La Haye, R ^[1]; Liu, S ^[10]; Loarte, A ^[3]; Nave, M F. F. ^[11]; Osborne, T H ^[1]; Oyama, N ^[12]; Osakabe, M ^[13]; Park, J K ^[8] ; Ramasubramanian, N ^[14]; Reimerdes, H ^[15]; Saibene, G ^[16]; Saimi, A ^[17]; Shinohara, K ^[18]; Spong, Donald A ^[19]; Solomon, W M ^[8]; Tala, T ^[20]; Zhu, Y B ^[9]; Zhai, K ^[21]; Boedo, J ^[22]; Chuyanov, V ^[3]; Doyle, E J ^[23]; Jakubowski, M W ^[24]; Jhang, H ^[25]; Nazikian, Raffi ^[8]; Pustovitov, V D ^[26]; Schmitz, O ^[27]; Sanchez, Raul ^[19]; Srinivasan, R ^[14]; Taylor, T S ^[1]; Wade, M ^[1]; You, K I ^[25]; Zeng, L ^[23]

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1. General Atomics, San Diego
2. CRPP, Switzerland
3. ITER Organization, Cadarache, France
4. General Atomics
5. Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, Culham, UK
6. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
7. Academia Sinica, Institute of Plasma Physics, Hefei, China
8. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)
9. University of California, Irvine
10. ASIPP, Hefei, China
11. Association EURATOM/IST, Lisbon, Portugal
12. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)
13. National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Japan
14. Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, India
15. Columbia University
16. Fusion for Energy (F4E), Barcelona, Spain
17. Aalto University, Finland
18. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Naka
19. ORNL
20. Association Euratom-Tekes, Finland
21. University of Wisconsin, Madison
22. University of California, San Diego
23. University of California, Los Angeles
24. Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysik, EURATOM-Association, Greifswald, Germany
25. National Fusion Research Institute, Daejon, South Korea
26. Russian Research Center, Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia
27. Forschungszentrum Julich, Julich, Germany

Experiments at DIII-D investigated the effects of magnetic error fields similar to those expected from proposed ITER test blanket modules (TBMs) containing ferromagnetic material. Studied were effects on: plasma rotation and locking, confinement, L-H transition, the H-mode pedestal, edge localized modes (ELMs) and ELM suppression by resonant magnetic perturbations, energetic particle losses, and more. The experiments used a purpose-built three-coil mock-up of two magnetized ITER TBMs in one ITER equatorial port. The largest effect was a reduction in plasma toroidal rotation velocity v across the entire radial profile by as much as Delta upsilon/upsilon similar to 60% via non-resonant braking. Changes to global Delta n/n, Delta beta/beta and Delta H(98)/H(98) were similar to 3 times smaller. These effects are stronger at higher beta. Other effects were smaller. The TBM field increased sensitivity to locking by an applied known n = 1 test field in both L-and H-mode plasmas. Locked mode tolerance was completely restored in L-mode by re-adjusting the DIII-D n = 1 error field compensation system. Numerical modelling by IPEC reproduces the rotation braking and locking semi-quantitatively, and identifies plasma amplification of a few n = 1 Fourier harmonics as the main cause of braking. IPEC predicts that TBM braking in H-mode may be reduced by n = 1 control. Although extrapolation from DIII-D to ITER is still an open issue, these experiments suggest that a TBM-like error field will produce only a few potentially troublesome problems, and that they might be made acceptably small.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1037099
• Journal Information: Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 51, Issue 10
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English