Effects of plasmoid formation on sawtooth process in a tokamak

Ali, A.; Zhu, P.

doi:10.1063/1.5091857

Effects of plasmoid formation on sawtooth process in a tokamak

Journal Article · Wed May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5091857· OSTI ID:1610069

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National Tokamak Fusion Program, Islamabad (Pakistan); Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); DOE/OSTI
Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

For realistic values of the Lundquist number in tokamak plasmas, 1/1 magnetic islands lead to the formation of a secondary thin current sheet, which breaks up into a chain of small magnetic islands, called plasmoids. The role of plasmoid dynamics during the sawtooth reconnection process in fusion plasmas remains an unresolved issue. In this study, systematic simulations are performed to investigate the resistive internal kink mode using the full resistive magnetohydrodynamics equations implemented in the NIMROD code in a simplified tokamak geometry. For Lundquist number S≥1.6×10⁷, the secondary current sheet is found to be unstable to plasmoids during the nonlinear resistive kink mode evolution with a critical aspect ratio of the current sheet of ~70. The merging of small plasmoids leads to the formation of a monster plasmoid that can significantly affect the primary island evolution. This may provide an explanation for the partial reconnection observed in sawtooth experiments.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-86ER53218; SC0018001

OSTI ID:: 1610069

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1515611

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 26; ISSN 1070-664X

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Particle simulation studies of merging processes of two spherical-tokamak-type plasmoids Horiuchi, Ritoku; Usami, Shunsuke; Moritaka, Toseo Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5104281	journal	September 2019
Role of Hall effect on the resistive kink mode in tokamaks Zhang, W.; Ma, Z. W.; Zhang, H. W. Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Vol. 62, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab60ff	journal	January 2020

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