Shock formation induced by poloidal flow and its effects on the edge stability in tokamaks

Journal Article · Fri Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4945616· OSTI ID:22599126

Seol, J.; Aydemir, A. Y. ^[1]; Shaing, K. C. ^[2]

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1. KSTAR Research Center, National Fusion Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)
2. Institute for Space, Astrophysical and Plasma Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan (China)

In the high confinement mode of tokamaks, magnitude of the radial electric field increases at the edge. Thus, the poloidal flow inside the transport barrier can be sonic when the edge pressure gradient is not steep enough to make the poloidal flow subsonic. When the poloidal Mach number is close to unity, a shock appears in the low field side and causes a large density perturbation. In this study, we describe a shock induced by the sonic poloidal plasma flow. Then, an entropy production across the shock is calculated. Finally, we introduce a simple model for Type III edge localized modes using the poloidal density variation driven by the sonic poloidal flow.

• OSTI ID: 22599126
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 4; Other Information: (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
CONFINEMENT
DENSITY
DISTURBANCES
EDGE LOCALIZED MODES
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ENTROPY
MACH NUMBER
PERTURBATION THEORY
PLASMA
PRESSURE GRADIENTS
STABILITY
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TRANSPORT THEORY