Linear and 2D nonlinear studies of resistive instabilities in the cylindrical spheromak

Thesis/Dissertation · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:5869348

DeLucia, J

The cylindrical spheromak is a fictitious configuration in which the toroidal spheromak has been cut and straightened out to become a circular cylinder of radius a, length 2..pi..R, and with periodic boundary conditions. It has proven to be a useful model for studying spheromak instabilities in which toroidal effects are not important. The majority of interest in this area lies in attempting to understand the effect that the resistive interchange instability has on confinement in the spheromak, the reason being that finite pressure spheromak configurations are always unstable to this mode. Therefore, most of the results presented in this thesis pertain to the nonlinear development of the resistive interchanger mode. The goal is to understand the quasilinear modifications of the equilibrium profile due to the growth of this instability, and the subsequent effect that the equilibrium modification has on the growth rate and eigenfunctions. The studies of the resistive interchange mode reveal that mode saturation can occur due to the quasilinear flattening of the pressure profile in the vicinity of the mode rational surface. However, this saturation process is defeated when the plasma overheats and in regions of the plasma where the shear is low.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5869348
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700101 -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Confinement
Heating
& Production
700107* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Instabilities
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
CONFINEMENT
FUNCTIONAL MODELS
INSTABILITY
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
PLASMA INSTABILITY
SPHEROMAK DEVICES
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS