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Title: ADX: a high field, high power density, advanced divertor and RF tokamak

Journal Article · · Nuclear Fusion

The MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and collaborators are proposing a high-performance Advanced Divertor and RF tokamak eXperiment (ADX) – a tokamak specifically designed to address critical gaps in the world fusion research program on the pathway to next step devices: fusion nuclear science facility (FNSF), fusion pilot plant (FPP), and/or demonstration power plant (DEMO). This high field (≥ 6.5 tesla, 1.5 MA), high power density facility (P/S ~ 1.5 MW/m2) will test innovative divertor ideas, including an ‘X-point target divertor’ concept, at the required performance parameters – reactor-level boundary plasma pressures, magnetic field strengths and parallel heat flux densities entering into the divertor region – while simultaneously producing high performance core plasma conditions that are prototypical of a reactor: equilibrated electrons and ions, regimes with low or no torque, and no fueling from external heating and current drive systems. Equally important, the experimental platform will test innovative concepts for lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) and ion-cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) actuators with the unprecedented ability to deploy launch structures both on the lowmagnetic- field side and the high-magnetic-field side – the latter being a location where energetic plasma-material interactions can be controlled and favorable RF wave physics leads to efficient current drive, current profile control, heating and flow drive. This triple combination – advanced divertors, advanced RF actuators, reactor-prototypical core plasma conditions – will enable ADX to explore enhanced core confinement physics, such as made possible by reversed central shear, using only the types of external drive systems that are considered viable for a fusion power plant. Such an integrated demonstration of high-performance core-divertor operation with steady state sustainment would pave the way toward an attractive pilot plant, as envisioned in the ARC concept (Affordable, Robust, Compact) [B. N. Sorbom, et al., submitted to Fusion Engineering Design, 2014] that makes use of high-temperature superconductor technology – a high-field (9.25 tesla) tokamak the size of the Joint European Torus that produces 270 MW of net electricity.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1463827
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-741410; 895963; TRN: US1902330
Journal Information:
Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 55, Issue 5; ISSN 0029-5515
Publisher:
IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 78 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (15)

The snowflake divertor journal November 2015
Simulation of plasma turbulence in the periphery of diverted tokamak by using the GBS code journal November 2018
Conceptual design of divertor and first wall for DEMO-FNS journal November 2015
Analytical calculations for impurity seeded partially detached divertor conditions journal February 2016
A review of radiative detachment studies in tokamak advanced magnetic divertor configurations journal April 2017
Progress toward divertor detachment on TCV within H-mode operating parameters journal May 2019
Separating the roles of magnetic topology and neutral trapping in modifying the detachment threshold for TCV journal January 2020
A gyrokinetic perspective on the JET-ILW pedestal journal January 2017
High-resolution heat flux width measurements at reactor-level magnetic fields and observation of a unified width scaling across confinement regimes in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak journal July 2018
High field side lower hybrid wave launch for steady state plasma sustainment journal November 2018
Radiative heat exhaust in Alcator C-Mod I-mode plasmas journal March 2019
Self-consistent simulation of supersonic plasma flows in advanced divertors journal June 2019
A high field side multijunction launcher with aperture impedance matching for lower hybrid current drive in DIII-D advanced tokamak plasmas journal July 2019
Performance assessment of long-legged tightly-baffled divertor geometries in the ARC reactor concept journal September 2019
Study of passively stable, fully detached divertor plasma regimes attained in innovative long-legged divertor configurations journal October 2019

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