skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Study of argon expulsion from the post-disruption runaway electron plateau following low-Z massive gas injection in DIII-D

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0003299· OSTI ID:1631980

Herein, a 1D radial diffusion model is developed to study the observed rapid expulsion of argon from the runaway electron plateau in the DIII-D tokamak following secondary massive low-Z (D2 or He) gas injection. The expulsion of argon is found to be caused by further cooling of the background plasma due to the added neutrals, accompanied by recombination of argon ions and greatly increased outward radial transport rate of argon (now dominantly in neutral form) out of the runaway electron beam. After argon expulsion, power loss out of the runaway electron plateau is found to be dominated by neutral transport to the wall (rather than by radiation); this result resolves the power balance discrepancy highlighted in previous work on argon expulsion out of the runaway electron plateau.

Research Organization:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-04ER54698; FG02-07ER54917; AC05-00OR22725; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-04ER54744; AC05-06OR23100
OSTI ID:
1631980
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1615413; OSTI ID: 1657911
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 27, Issue 4; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (21)

Measurement of runaway electron energy distribution function during high-Z gas injection into runaway electron plateaus in DIII-Da) journal May 2015
A design retrospective of the DIII-D tokamak journal May 2002
Corrigendum: Runaway electron beam generation and mitigation during disruptions at JET-ILW (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013) journal November 2015
Kink instabilities of the post-disruption runaway electron beam at low safety factor journal March 2019
Study of argon assimilation into the post-disruption runaway electron plateau in DIII-D and comparison with a 1D diffusion model journal August 2019
Inter-machine comparison of the termination phase and energy conversion in tokamak disruptions with runaway current plateau formation and implications for ITER journal July 2014
Study of Z scaling of runaway electron plateau final loss energy deposition into wall of DIII-D journal June 2017
Measurement and modeling of molecular ion concentrations in a hydrogen reflex-arc discharge journal October 2002
Dissociative recombination and dissociative excitation of HeH + 4 : Absolute cross sections and mechanisms journal October 1996
Disruptions in ITER and strategies for their control and mitigation journal August 2015
Cretin—a radiative transfer capability for laboratory plasmas journal October 2001
The cross section for symmetric charge exchange of He + in He at energies between 0.3 and 8 eV journal December 1977
Control and dissipation of runaway electron beams created during rapid shutdown experiments in DIII-D journal July 2013
Evaluated Bimolecular Ion‐Molecule Gas Phase Kinetics of Positive Ions for Use in Modeling Planetary Atmospheres, Cometary Comae, and Interstellar Clouds journal November 1993
Runaway electron damage to the Tore Supra Phase III outboard pump limiter journal February 1997
Coupled plasma–wall modeling journal June 2009
Status of research toward the ITER disruption mitigation system journal November 2014
Application of the collisional-radiative, atomic-molecular model to the recombining divertor plasma journal November 1996
Chapter 3: MHD stability, operational limits and disruptions journal June 2007
Dissipation of post-disruption runaway electron plateaus by shattered pellet injection in DIII-D journal March 2018
Physics of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal June 2019