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Simulation of runaway electron generation during plasma shutdown by impurity injection

Abstract

Disruptions are dangerous instabilities in tokamaks that should be avoided or mitigated. One possible disruption mitigation method is to inject impurities into the plasma to shut it down in a controlled way. Runaway Electrons (REs) can be generated after the plasma is cooled down by the impurities and these electrons can damage the tokamak. In this work a simulation code is developed to investigate different disruption mitigation scenarios. The response of the bulk plasma, more precisely the temperature evolution of electrons, deuterium and impurity ions are described by energy balance equations in a 1D cylindrical plasma model. The induction and resistive diffusion of electric field is calculated. RE generation rates are used to calculate the runaway current. The Dreicer, hot-tail and avalanche effect is taken into account and a simple model for RE losses is also included. RE generation is studied in JET-like plasmas during pellet injection. Carbon pellets cause effective cooling but these scenarios are prone to runaway generation. A mixture of argon and deuterium gas could be used for safe shutdown without RE generation. In ITER the hot-tail RE generation process becomes important, and the simulation is therefore extended to take this into account. Shutdown scenarios with different  More>>
Authors:
Publication Date:
Mar 15, 2011
Product Type:
Technical Report
Report Number:
CTH-NT-238
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis or Dissertation; TH: Licentiate thesis (TeknL); 44 refs., 2 figs
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; TOKAMAK DEVICES; RUNAWAY ELECTRONS; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; PLASMA IMPURITIES; PLASMA DISRUPTION
OSTI ID:
1008079
Research Organizations:
Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Goeteborg (Sweden). Dept. of Applied Physics, Div. of Nuclear Engineering
Country of Origin:
Sweden
Language:
English
Other Identifying Numbers:
Other: ISSN 1653-4662; TRN: SE1108033
Availability:
Available from: Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Nuclear engineering, Applied Physics, SE-412 96 Goeteborg, Sweden or http://www.nephy.chalmers.se; OSTI as DE01008079
Submitting Site:
SWDN
Size:
29 pages
Announcement Date:
Jan 26, 2012

Citation Formats

Feher, Tamas. Simulation of runaway electron generation during plasma shutdown by impurity injection. Sweden: N. p., 2011. Web.
Feher, Tamas. Simulation of runaway electron generation during plasma shutdown by impurity injection. Sweden.
Feher, Tamas. 2011. "Simulation of runaway electron generation during plasma shutdown by impurity injection." Sweden.
@misc{etde_1008079,
title = {Simulation of runaway electron generation during plasma shutdown by impurity injection}
author = {Feher, Tamas}
abstractNote = {Disruptions are dangerous instabilities in tokamaks that should be avoided or mitigated. One possible disruption mitigation method is to inject impurities into the plasma to shut it down in a controlled way. Runaway Electrons (REs) can be generated after the plasma is cooled down by the impurities and these electrons can damage the tokamak. In this work a simulation code is developed to investigate different disruption mitigation scenarios. The response of the bulk plasma, more precisely the temperature evolution of electrons, deuterium and impurity ions are described by energy balance equations in a 1D cylindrical plasma model. The induction and resistive diffusion of electric field is calculated. RE generation rates are used to calculate the runaway current. The Dreicer, hot-tail and avalanche effect is taken into account and a simple model for RE losses is also included. RE generation is studied in JET-like plasmas during pellet injection. Carbon pellets cause effective cooling but these scenarios are prone to runaway generation. A mixture of argon and deuterium gas could be used for safe shutdown without RE generation. In ITER the hot-tail RE generation process becomes important, and the simulation is therefore extended to take this into account. Shutdown scenarios with different concentration of neon and argon impurities were tested in ITER-like plasmas. To simplify the problem the impurity injection into the plasma is not modeled in these cases, only the response of the bulk plasma. The avalanche process cannot be suppressed in a simple way and would produce high runaway current. It can be avoided if some runaway loss phenomenon is included in the simulations, like diffusion due to magnetic perturbations}
place = {Sweden}
year = {2011}
month = {Mar}
}