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Title: Novel aspects of plasma control in ITER

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4907901· OSTI ID:1350062
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [1];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [2];  [5];  [7];  [9];  [3];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [3]
  1. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  2. CREATE/Univ. of Naples Federico II, Napoli (Italy)
  3. ITER Organization, St. Paul Lez durance Cedex (France)
  4. Eindhoven Univ. of Technology, Eindhoven (The Netherlands)
  5. Max-Planck Institut fur Plasmaphysik, Garching (Germany)
  6. Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
  7. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne (Switzlerland)
  8. CEA, IRFM, St. Paul-lez Durance (France)
  9. Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA (United States)

ITER plasma control design solutions and performance requirements are strongly driven by its nuclear mission, aggressive commissioning constraints, and limited number of operational discharges. In addition, high plasma energy content, heat fluxes, neutron fluxes, and very long pulse operation place novel demands on control performance in many areas ranging from plasma boundary and divertor regulation to plasma kinetics and stability control. Both commissioning and experimental operations schedules provide limited time for tuning of control algorithms relative to operating devices. Although many aspects of the control solutions required by ITER have been well-demonstrated in present devices and even designed satisfactorily for ITER application, many elements unique to ITER including various crucial integration issues are presently under development. We describe selected novel aspects of plasma control in ITER, identifying unique parts of the control problem and highlighting some key areas of research remaining. Novel control areas described include control physics understanding (e.g. current profile regulation, tearing mode suppression (TM)), control mathematics (e.g. algorithmic and simulation approaches to high confidence robust performance), and integration solutions (e.g. methods for management of highly-subscribed control resources). We identify unique aspects of the ITER TM suppression scheme, which will pulse gyrotrons to drive current within a magnetic island, and turn the drive off following suppression in order to minimize use of auxiliary power and maximize fusion gain. The potential role of active current profile control and approaches to design in ITER are discussed. Finally, issues and approaches to fault handling algorithms are described, along with novel aspects of actuator sharing in ITER.

Research Organization:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-04ER54698
OSTI ID:
1350062
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1228140
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 2; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 42 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Computational challenges in magnetic-confinement fusion physics journal May 2016
Summary of the FESAC Transformative Enabling Capabilities Panel Report journal March 2019
Simulation of profile evolution from ramp-up to ramp-down and optimization of tokamak plasma termination with the RAPTOR code journal October 2017
Real-time-capable prediction of temperature and density profiles in a tokamak using RAPTOR and a first-principle-based transport model journal July 2018
Real-time plasma state monitoring and supervisory control on TCV journal January 2019
Progress in disruption prevention for ITER journal June 2019
Real-time plasma state monitoring and supervisory control on TCV text January 2019

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