J.P. Levesque

The high beta tokamak-extended pulse magnetohydrodynamic mode control research program

The high beta tokamak-extended pulse (HBT-EP) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mode control research program is studying ITER relevant internal modular feedback control coil configurations and their impact on kink mode rigidity, advanced digital control algorithms and the effects of plasma rotation and three-dimensional magnetic fields on MHD mode stability. A new segmented adjustable conducting wall has been installed on the HBT-EP and is made up of 20 independent, movable, wall shell segments instrumented with three distinct sets of 40 saddle coils, totaling 120 in-vessel modular feedback control coils. Each internal coil set has been designed with varying toroidal angular coil coverage of 5, 10 and 15°, spanning the toroidal angle range of an ITER port plug based internal coil to test resistive wall mode (RWM) interaction and multimode MHD plasma response to such highly localized control fields. In addition, we have implemented 336 new poloidal and radial magnetic sensors to quantify the applied three-dimensional fields of our control coils along with the observed plasma response. This paper describes the design and implementation of the new control shell incorporating these control and sensor coils on the HBT-EP, and the research program plan on the upgraded HBT-EP to understand how best to optimize the use of modular feedback coils to control instability growth near the ideal wall stabilization limit, answer critical questions about the role of plasma rotation in active control of the RWM and the ferritic resistive wall mode, and to improve the performance of MHD control systems used in fusion experiments and future burning plasma systems.

A Kalman filter for feedback control of rotating external kink instabilities in the presence of noise

The simulation and experimental optimization of a Kalman filter feedback control algorithm for n=1 tokamak external kink modes are reported. In order to achieve the highest plasma pressure limits in ITER, resistive wall mode stabilization is required [T. C. Hender et al., Nucl. Fusion 47, S128 (2007)] and feedback algorithms will need to distinguish the mode from noise due to other magnetohydrodynamic activity. The Kalman filter contains an internal model that captures the dynamics of a rotating, growing n=1 mode. This model is actively compared with real-time measurements to produce an optimal estimate for the mode’s amplitude and phase. On the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse experiment [T. H. Ivers et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 1926 (1996)], the Kalman filter algorithm is implemented using a set of digital, field-programmable gate array controllers with 10 μs latencies. Signals from an array of 20 poloidal sensor coils are used to measure the n=1 mode, and the feedback control is applied using 40 poloidally...

Feedback suppression of rotating external kink instabilities in the presence of noise

The authors report on the first experimental demonstration of active feedback suppression of rotating external kink modes near the ideal wall limit in a tokamak using Kalman filtering to discriminate the n=1 kink mode from background noise. The Kalman filter contains an internal model that captures the dynamics of a rotating, growing n=1 mode. Suppression of the external kink mode is demonstrated over a broad range of phase angles between the sensed mode and applied control field, and performance is robust at noise levels that render proportional gain feedback ineffective. Suppression of the kink mode is accomplished without excitation of higher frequencies as was observed in previous experiments using lead-lag loop compensation [A. J. Klein et al., Phys Plasmas 12, 040703 (2005)].

A high-power spatial filter for Thomson scattering stray light reduction

The Thomson scattering diagnostic on the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) is routinely used to measure electron temperature and density during plasma discharges. Avalanche photodiodes in a five-channel interference filter polychromator measure scattered light from a 6 ns, 800 mJ, 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser pulse. A low cost, high-power spatial filter was designed, tested, and added to the laser beamline in order to reduce stray laser light to levels which are acceptable for accurate Rayleigh calibration. A detailed analysis of the spatial filter design and performance is given. The spatial filter can be easily implemented in an existing Thomson scattering system without the need to disturb the vacuum chamber or significantly change the beamline. Although apertures in the spatial filter suffer substantial damage from the focused beam, with proper design they can last long enough to permit absolute calibration.

Measurement of 3D plasma response to external magnetic perturbations in the presence of a rotating external kink

The detailed measurements of the 3D plasma response to applied external magnetic perturbations in the presence of a rotating external kink are presented, and compared with the predictions of a single-helicity linear model of kink mode dynamics. The modular control coils of the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) device are used to apply resonant m/n = 3/1 magnetic perturbations to wall-stabilized tokamak plasmas with a pre-existing rotating 3/1 kink mode. The plasma response is measured in high-resolution with the extensive magnetic diagnostic set of the HBT-EP device. The spatial structures of both the naturally rotating kink mode and the externally driven response are independently measured and observed to be identical, while the temporal dynamics are consistent with the independent evolution and superposition of the two modes. This leads to the observation of a characteristic change in 3D field dynamics as a function of the applied field amplitude. This amplitude dependence is found to be different for poloidal and radial fields. The measured 3D response is compared to and shown to be consistent with the predictions of the linear single-helicity model in the “high-dissipation” regime, as reported previously [M. E. Mauel et al., Nucl. Fusion 45, 285 (2005)].

High resolution detection and excitation of resonant magnetic perturbations in a wall-stabilized tokamaka)

We report high-resolution detection of the 3D plasma magnetic response of wall-stabilized tokamak discharges in the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse [T. H. Ivers et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 1926 (1996)] device. A new adjustable conducting wall has been installed on HBT-EP made up of 20 independent, movable, wall segments instrumented with three distinct sets of 40 modular coils that can be independently driven to generate a wide variety of magnetic perturbations. High-resolution detection of the plasma response is made with 216 poloidal and radial magnetic sensors that have been located and calibrated with high-accuracy. Static and dynamic plasma responses to resonant and non-resonant magnetic perturbations are observed through measurement of the step-response following a rapid change in the toroidal phase of the applied perturbations. Biorthogonal decomposition of the full set of magnetic sensors clearly defines the structures of naturally occurring external kinks as being composed of independent m/n = 3/1 and 6/2 modes. Resonant magnetic perturbations were applied to discharges with pre-existing, saturated m/n = 3/1 external kink mode activity. This m/n = 3/1 kink mode was observed to lock to the applied perturbation field. During this kink mode locked period, the plasma resonant response is characterized by a linear, a saturated, and a disruptive plasma regime dependent on the magnitude of the applied field and value of the edge safety factor and plasma rotation.We report high-resolution detection of the 3D plasma magnetic response of wall-stabilized tokamak discharges in the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse [T. H. Ivers et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 1926 (1996)] device. A new adjustable conducting wall has been installed on HBT-EP made up of 20 independent, movable, wall segments instrumented with three distinct sets of 40 modular coils that can be independently driven to generate a wide variety of magnetic perturbations. High-resolution detection of the plasma response is made with 216 poloidal and radial magnetic sensors that have been located and calibrated with high-accuracy. Static and dynamic plasma responses to resonant and non-resonant magnetic perturbations are observed through measurement of the step-response following a rapid change in the toroidal phase of the applied perturbations. Biorthogonal decomposition of the full set of magnetic sensors clearly defines the structures of naturally occurring external kinks as being composed of independent m/n = 3/1 ...

Active and passive kink mode studies in a tokamak with a movable ferromagnetic walla)

High-resolution active and passive kink mode studies are conducted in a tokamak with an adjustable ferromagnetic wall near the plasma surface. Ferritic tiles made from 5.6 mm thick Hiperco® 50 alloy have been mounted on the plasma-facing side of half of the in-vessel movable wall segments in the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse device [D. A. Maurer et al., Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 53, 074016 (2011)] in order to explore ferritic resistive wall mode stability. Low-activation ferritic steels are a candidate for structural components of a fusion reactor, and these experiments examine MHD stability of plasmas with nearby ferromagnetic material. Plasma-wall separation for alternating ferritic and non-ferritic wall segments is adjusted between discharges without opening the vacuum vessel. Amplification of applied resonant magnetic perturbations and plasma disruptivity are observed to increase when the ferromagnetic wall is close to plasma surface instead of the standard stainless steel wall. Rapidly rotati...

Soft x-ray measurements of resistive wall mode behavior in NSTX*

A multi-energy soft x-ray (ME-SXR) array is used for the characterization of resistive wall modes (RWMs) in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Modulations in the time history of the ME-SXR emissivity profiles indicate the existence of edge density and core temperature fluctuations in good agreement with the slow evolution of the n = 1 magnetic perturbation measured by the poloidal and radial RWM coils. The characteristic 20–25 Hz frequency in the SXR diagnostics is approximately that of the n = 1 stable RWM, which is also near the measured peak of the resonant field amplification (RFA) and inversely proportional to the wall time. Together with the magnetics, the ME-SXR measurements suggest that in NSTX the RWM is not restricted exclusively to the reactor wall and edge, and that acting with the stabilizing coils on its global structure may result in density and temperature fluctuations that can be taken into account when designing the feedback process.

Fast, multi-channel real-time processing of signals with microsecond latency using graphics processing units.

Fast, digital signal processing (DSP) has many applications. Typical hardware options for performing DSP are field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application-specific integrated DSP chips, or general purpose personal computer systems. This paper presents a novel DSP platform that has been developed for feedback control on the HBT-EP tokamak device. The system runs all signal processing exclusively on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to achieve real-time performance with latencies below 8 μs. Signals are transferred into and out of the GPU using PCI Express peer-to-peer direct-memory-access transfers without involvement of the central processing unit or host memory. Tests were performed on the feedback control system of the HBT-EP tokamak using forty 16-bit floating point inputs and outputs each and a sampling rate of up to 250 kHz. Signals were digitized by a D-TACQ ACQ196 module, processing done on an NVIDIA GTX 580 GPU programmed in CUDA, and analog output was generated by D-TACQ AO32CPCI modules.

Improved feedback control of wall stabilized kink modes with different plasma–wall couplings and mode rotation

A new algorithm for feedback control of rotating, wall-stabilized kink modes in the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) device maintains an accurate phase shift between the perturbation and the measured rotating mode through current control, with control power emphasizing fast rotation and phase jumps over fast amplitude changes. In HBT-EP, wall-stabilized kink modes become unstable above the ideal wall stability limit, and feedback suppression is aimed at delaying the onset of discharge disruption through reduction of the kink mode amplitude. Performance of the new feedback algorithm is tested under different experimental conditions, including variation of the plasma–wall coupling, insertion of a ferritic wall, changing mode rotation frequency over the range of 4–8 kHz using an internal biased electrode, and adjusting the feedback phase-angle to accelerate, amplify, or suppress the mode. We find the previously reported excitation of the slowly rotating mode at high feedback gain in HBT-EP is mitigated by the current control scheme. We also find good agreement between the observed and predicted changes to the mode rotation frequency and amplitude. When ferritic material is introduced, or the plasma–wall coupling becomes weaker as the walls are retracted from plasma, the feedback gain needs to be increased to achieve the same level of suppression. When mode rotation is slowed by a biased electrode, the feedback system still achieves mode suppression, and demonstrates wide bandwidth effectiveness.