H. M. Mayer

Retention of gaseous and target produced impurities in the ASDEX divertor chamber

This letter reports on two experiments undertaken to evaluate the retention of gaseous and target produced impurities in the ASDEX divertor. The retention for gaseous impurities was determined by puffing Ar into the main chamber and simulating the time behaviour of the Ar XVI line intensity with a time dependent impurity transport code including a simple divertor model. During Ohmic heating a factor of 3 and 4.5 enhancement of impurity retention if found relative to the vacuum time constant (90 ms) of the divertor chamber, for ne = 2 × 1013 cm−3 and ne = 3.5 × 1013 cm−3, respectively, while a drastic breakdown of the retention occurs during high power NI heating. – To deduce the retention of impurities generated at the divertor plates, a segment (3.5%) of the plates was covered with copper, a metal previously not used in ASDEX. By measuring the Cu influx at the target plates and the line intensity of the Cu XX line (11.38 A) in the core plasma and by using the transport code, it is found that during NI heating (ne ≤ 2 × 1013 cm−3) Cu atoms originating from the target plates have a ≤ 3.5 times higher probability to penetrate into the core plasma than if they had when originating from the main chamber walls.

Ion temperature profiles and thermal conductivity analysis for Ohmic plasmas in ASDEX

Ion temperature profiles from a neutral particle analyser are used for a thorough analysis of the ion thermal conductivity. In Ohmic ASDEX plasmas, two distinct regimes of energy confinement are possible which differ in the ion heat transport properties. The Improved Ohmic Confinement regime is reached through a transition from anomalous to neoclassical ion heat transport. The transition could be caused by a modification of the sawtooth behaviour.

Confinement and stability in ASDEX discharges close to the beta limit

The highest β-values derived from diamagnetic flux measurements in H-discharges are found to be close to the β-limit due to kink and ideal ballooning modes. Both energy and particle confinement are degraded in these discharges and do not recover during the injection period. The energy confinement time decreases by a typical factor of two, the electron thermal diffusivity being correspondingly enhanced. Electron heat conduction is again found to be the dominant energy loss channel. The degradation of confinement close to the ideal-MHD limit suggests that kink and ballooning instabilities occur and are responsible for the enhanced transport. This conclusion is supported by the correlation with the pressure profile and by the result that global and local transport do not change in a reference discharge which is stable against ideal-MHD modes.