Transport and dynamics in toroidal fusion systems. Report of second year progress, 1993--1994
- Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, CA (United States). Applied Plasma Physics and Technology Div.
In this document the author describes an extension of the spatial gridding techniques to an MHD model suitable for the description of the dynamics of toroidal fusion devices. Since the dominant MHD modes in these devices have relatively long toroidal wavelength, the toroidal coordinate is approximated with finite Fourier series. The unstructured, triangular mesh is used to describe the details of the poloidal geometry. With some exceptions, the hydrodynamic variables are treated in a manner analogous to that used in CFD. These quantities (mass, energy, and momentum) are volume based densities that satisfy scalar or vector conservation laws. The electromagnetic variables (the magnetic flux density B and the electric current density J) are area based densities that satisfy pseudo-vector conservation laws, and have no counterpart in fluid dynamics. These variables are also constrained to remain solenoidal. These quantities are represented on the triangular mesh in a new manner that is an extension of that used on rectangular, structured meshes. In this work the author has chosen to solve the primitive MHD equations in order to make the resulting codes and techniques more generally applicable to problems beyond the narrow scope of tokamak plasmas. The temporal stiffness problems inherent in this description of tokamak dynamics that motivate the reduced MHD model are addressed here with the semi-implicit method of time integration. Finally, the author remarks that, while the present work deals strictly with the MHD equations, other volume based fluid descriptions, such as diffusive transport could easily be adapted to these techniques and coupled with the description of the electromagnetic field presented here.
- Research Organization:
- Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG03-91ER54124
- OSTI ID:
- 10183442
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER/54124-1; SAIC-94/1098; ON: DE94018653; IN: APPAT--163; BR: AT0520210/AT0520230; TRN: 94:018962
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 9 May 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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