Full-f Neoclassical Simulations toward a Predictive Model for H-mode Pedestal Ion Energy, Particle and Momentum Transport

Conference · Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014

OSTI ID:1182600

Battaglia, D. J. ^[1]; Boedo, J. A. ^[2]; Burrell, K. H. ^[3]; Chang, C. S. ^[1]; Canik, J. M. ^[4]; deGrassie, J. S. ^[3]; Gerhardt, S. P. ^[1]; Grierson, B. A. ^[3]; Groebner, R. J. ^[3]; Maingi, Rajesh ^[1]; Smith, S. P. ^[3]

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1. PPPL
2. University of California San Diego
3. General Atomics
4. ORNL

Energy and particle transport rates are decoupled in the H-mode edge since the ion thermal transport rate is primarily set by the neoclassical transport of the deuterium ions in the tail of the thermal energy distribution, while the net particle transport rate is set by anomalous transport of the colder bulk ions. Ion orbit loss drives the energy distributions away from Maxwellian, and describes the anisotropy, poloidal asymmetry and local minimum near the separatrix observed in the Ti profile. Non-Maxwellian distributions also drive large intrinsic edge flows, and the interaction of turbulence at the top of the pedestal with the intrinsic edge flow can generate an intrinsic core torque. The primary driver of the radial electric field (Er) in the pedestal and scrapeoff layer (SOL) are kinetic neoclassical effects, such as ion orbit loss of tail ions and parallel electron loss to the divertor. This paper describes the first multi-species kinetic neoclassical transport calculations for ELM-free H-mode pedestal and scrape-off layer on DIII-D using XGC0, a 5D full-f particle-in-cell drift-kinetic solver with self-consistent neutral recycling and sheath potentials. Quantitative agreement between the flux-driven simulation and the experimental electron density, impurity density and orthogonal measurements of impurity temperature and flow profiles is achieved by adding random-walk particle diffusion to the guiding-center drift motion. This interpretative technique quantifies the role of neoclassical, anomalous and neutral transport to the overall pedestal structure, and consequently illustrates the importance of including kinetic effects self-consistently in transport calculations around transport barriers.

• Research Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC02-09CH11466
• OSTI ID: 1182600
• Report Number(s): PPPL-5070
• Resource Relation: Conference: 25th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia, 13-18 October 2014.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Edge plasma
Numerical Simulation
Tokamaks