Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Characteristics of grassy ELMs and their impact on the divertor heat flux width

Journal Article · · Nuclear Fusion

We report BOUT++ turbulence simulations are conducted for a 60 s steady-state long pulse high βp EAST grassy ELM discharge. BOUT++ linear simulations show that the unstable mode spectrum covers a range of toroidal mode numbers from low-n (n = 10–15) peeling–ballooning modes (P–B) to high-n (n = 40–80) drift-Alfvén instabilities. Nonlinear simulations show that the ELM crash is triggered by low-n peeling modes and fluctuation is generated at the peak pressure gradient position and radially spread outward into the scrape-off-layer, even though the drift-Alfvén instabilities dominate the linear growth phase. However, drift-Alfvén turbulence delays the onset of the grassy ELM and enhances the energy loss with the fluctuation extending to pedestal top region. Simulations further show that if the peeling drive is removed, the fluctuation amplitude drops by an order of magnitude and the ELM crashes disappear. The divertor heat flux width is ~2 times larger than the estimates based on the HD model and the Eich's ITPA multi-tokamak scaling (or empirical Eich scaling) due to the strong radial turbulence transport.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Key R&D Program of China; Chinese Academy of Science (CAS); National Natural Science Foundation of China
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1893604
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-833914; 1052270
Journal Information:
Nuclear Fusion, Journal Name: Nuclear Fusion Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 62; ISSN 0029-5515
Publisher:
IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (36)

Calculation of two-dimension radial electric field in boundary plasmas by using BOUT++ journal July 2018
Drift reduced Landau fluid model for magnetized plasma turbulence simulations in BOUT++ framework journal October 2021
Broadening of the power fall-off length in a high density, high confinement H-mode regime in ASDEX Upgrade journal March 2021
ELM energy and particle losses and their extrapolation to burning plasma experiments journal March 2003
Numerical studies of edge localized instabilities in tokamaks journal April 2002
Simulations of divertor heat flux width using transport code with cross-field drifts under the BOUT++ framework journal January 2020
Scaling studies of the high mode pedestal journal May 1998
Reconstruction of current profile parameters and plasma shapes in tokamaks journal November 1985
D III-D divertor target heat flux measurements during ohmic and neutral beam heating journal May 1988
Heuristic drift-based model of the power scrape-off width in low-gas-puff H-mode tokamaks journal December 2011
Six-field two-fluid simulations of peeling–ballooning modes using BOUT++ journal May 2013
Scaling of the tokamak near the scrape-off layer H-mode power width and implications for ITER journal August 2013
Nonlinear fluid simulation of particle and heat fluxes during burst of ELMs on DIII-D with BOUT++  code journal September 2015
Integrated modeling applications for tokamak experiments with OMFIT journal July 2015
Disappearance of giant ELMs and appearance of minute grassy ELMs in JT-60U high-triangularity discharges journal May 2000
Edge localized mode characteristics and divertor heat flux during stationary and transient phase for CFETR hybrid scenario journal January 2021
Investigation of the role of pedestal pressure and collisionality on type-I ELM divertor heat loads in DIII-D journal July 2018
Grassy-ELM regime with edge resonant magnetic perturbations in fully noninductive plasmas in the DIII-D tokamak journal July 2018
Prediction of divertor heat flux width for ITER using BOUT++ transport and turbulence module journal February 2019
Simulations on the transient heat fluxes for the low-hybrid wave heating H-mode on EAST journal June 2019
Dependence on plasma shape and plasma fueling for small edge-localized mode regimes in TCV and ASDEX Upgrade journal June 2019
Simulations of tokamak boundary plasma turbulence transport in setting the divertor heat flux width journal October 2019
Achieving a robust grassy-ELM operation regime in CFETR journal February 2020
Turbulence driven widening of the near-SOL power width in ASDEX Upgrade H-Mode discharges journal April 2020
Stationary high-performance grassy ELM regime in EAST journal June 2020
Non-linear extended MHD simulations of type-I edge localised mode cycles in ASDEX Upgrade and their underlying triggering mechanism journal November 2020
Impact of plasma density/collisionality on divertor heat flux width journal December 2020
Pedestal stability analysis on MAST in preparation for MAST-U journal March 2021
Effects of radial transport on divertor power and particle flux widths under different operational regimes in EAST journal September 2021
Edge-localized-mode simulation in CFETR steady-state scenario journal December 2021
Fluid turbulence simulations of divertor heat load for ITER hybrid scenario using BOUT++ journal December 2021
EAST steady-state long pulse H-mode with core-edge integration for CFETR journal April 2022
Nonlinear Simulations of Peeling-Ballooning Modes with Anomalous Electron Viscosity and their Role in Edge Localized Mode Crashes journal October 2010
Inter-ELM Power Decay Length for JET and ASDEX Upgrade: Measurement and Comparison with Heuristic Drift-Based Model journal November 2011
Magnetic Topology Changes Induced by Lower Hybrid Waves and their Profound Effect on Edge-Localized Modes in the EAST Tokamak journal June 2013
Emergent Universality in a Quantum Tricritical Dicke Model journal May 2019

Similar Records

Impact of pedestal density gradient and collisionality on ELM dynamics
Journal Article · Wed Nov 30 23:00:00 EST 2022 · Physics of Plasmas · OSTI ID:1902015

Grassy ELM regime at low pedestal collisionality in high-power tokamak plasma
Journal Article · Sun Dec 13 23:00:00 EST 2020 · Nuclear Fusion · OSTI ID:1812526