Junya Shiraishi

A matching problem revisited for stability analysis of resistive wall modes in flowing plasmas

The classical matching problem for magnetohydrodynamic stability analysis is revisited to study effects of the plasma flow on the resistive wall modes (RWMs). The Newcomb equation, which describes the marginal states and governs the regions except for the resonant surface, is generalized to analyze the stability of flowing plasmas. When there exists no flow, the singular point of the Newcomb equation and the resonant surface degenerate into the rational surface. The location of the rational surface is prescribed by the equilibrium, hence the inner layer, which must contain the resonant surface, can be set a priori. When the flow exists, the singular point of the Newcomb equation splits in two due to the Doppler shift. Additionally, the resonant surface deviates from the singular points and the rational surface if the resonant eigenmode has a real frequency. Since the location of the resonant surface depends on the unknown real frequency, it can be determined only a posteriori. Hence the classical asymptot...

Effects of centrifugal modification of magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium on resistive wall mode stability

Toroidal rotation effects are self-consistently taken into account not only in the linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability analysis but also in the equilibrium calculation. The MHD equilibrium computation is affected by centrifugal force due to the toroidal rotation. To study the toroidal rotation effects on resistive wall modes (RWMs), a new code has been developed. The RWMaC modules, which solve the electromagnetic dynamics in vacuum and the resistive wall, have been implemented in the MINERVA code, which solves the Frieman?Rotenberg equation that describes the linear ideal MHD dynamics in a rotating plasma. It is shown that modification of MHD equilibrium by the centrifugal force significantly reduces growth rates of RWMs with fast rotation in the order of M2?=?0.1 where M is the Mach number. Moreover, it can open a stable window which does not exist under the assumption that the rotation affects only the linear dynamics. The rotation modifies the equilibrium pressure gradient and current density profiles, which results in the change of potential energy including rotational effects.

Impact of plasma poloidal rotation on resistive wall mode instability in toroidally rotating plasmas

Stability of resistive wall mode (RWM) is investigated in a cylindrical plasma and an axisymmetric toroidal plasma by taking into account not only toroidal rotation but also poloidal rotation. Since the Doppler shifted frequency is responsible for the RWM stability, the modification of this Doppler shifted frequency by poloidal rotation affects the rotation effect on RWM. When a poloidal rotation frequency is not so large, the effect of poloidal rotation on the RWM stability can be approximately treated with the modified toroidal rotation frequency. In a toroidal plasma, this modified frequency is determined by subtracting a toroidal component of the rotation parallel to the magnetic field from the toroidal rotation frequency. The poloidal rotation that counteracts the effect of the Doppler shift strongly reduces the stabilizing effect of toroidal rotation, but by changing the rotational direction, the poloidal rotation enhances this stabilizing effect. This trend is confirmed in not only a cylindrical pl...

Simulation of plasma current ramp-up with reduced magnetic flux consumption in JT-60SA

Current ramp-up with reduced central solenoid (CS) flux consumption in JT-60SA has been investigated using an integrated modeling code suite (TOPICS) with a turbulent model (CDBM). The plasma current can be ramped-up from 0.6 MA to 2.1 MA with no additional CS flux consumption if the plasma current is overdriven by neutral-beam-driven and bootstrap current. A time duration required for the current ramp-up without CS flux consumption becomes as long as 150 s in the scenario we have examined. In order to achieve a current overdrive condition from 0.6 MA, the current drive by a lower energy neutral beam (85 keV) is effective. A higher energy neutral beam (500 keV) cannot be used in this early phase with a low central electron density (~2 × 1019 m−3) due to large shine through loss, while it can be effectively used in the later phase. Therefore, the main current driver should be switched from the lower energy neutral beam to the higher energy neutral beam during the current ramp-up phase. As a result of an intensive auxiliary heating, plasma beta (the ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure) becomes high. Ideal MHD instabilities of such high beta plasmas have been investigated using a linear ideal MHD stability analysis code (MARG2D). External kink modes which might affect the core plasma can be stabilized during the current ramp-up if there is a perfectly conducting wall at the location of the stabilizing plate and the vacuum vessel of JT-60SA and the plasma has a broader pressure profile with the H-mode pedestal and the internal transport barrier.

Flow-Induced New Channels of Energy Exchange in Multi-Scale Plasma Dynamics - Revisiting Perturbative Hybrid Kinetic-MHD Theory.

It is found that new channels of energy exchange between macro- and microscopic dynamics exist in plasmas. They are induced by macroscopic plasma flow. This finding is based on the kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) theory, which analyses interaction between macroscopic (MHD-scale) motion and microscopic (particle-scale) dynamics. The kinetic-MHD theory is extended to include effects of macroscopic plasma flow self-consistently. The extension is realised by generalising an energy exchange term due to wave-particle resonance, denoted by δu2009WK. The first extension is generalisation of the particle’s Lagrangian, and the second one stems from modification to the particle distribution function due to flow. These extensions lead to a generalised expression of δu2009WK, which affects the MHD stability of plasmas.

Reduction of poloidal magnetic flux consumption during plasma current ramp-up in DEMO relevant plasma regimes

The method for reducing a poloidal magnetic flux consumption of external coils is investigated to reduce the size of the central solenoid (CS) in the DEMO reactor. The reduction of the poloidal magnetic flux consumption during a plasma current ramp-up phase by electron cyclotron (EC) heating is investigated using an integrated modeling code suite, TOPICS. A strongly reversed shear q profile tends to be produced if intense off-axis EC heating is applied to obtain a large reduction of the flux consumption. In order to overcome this tendency, we find a method to obtain the optimum temperature profile which minimizes the poloidal flux consumption for a wide range of the q profile. We try to reproduce the optimum temperature profile for a weakly reversed shear q profile using six EC rays of 20 MW. As a result, the resistive flux consumption during the current ramp-up can be reduced by 63% from the estimation using the Ejima constant of 0.45 and the total flux consumption can be reduced by 20% from the conventional estimation. In addition, we find that the resistive flux consumption is closely related to the volume averaged electron temperature and not to the profile shape. Using this relation, the required heating power is estimated to be 31 MW based on a well established global confinement scaling, ITER L-89P. As a result, it is clarified that the poloidal magnetic flux consumption can be reduced by 20% using 20–31 MW of EC heating for a weakly reversed shear q profile. This reduction of the flux consumption accounts for 10% reduction of the CS radius.

Numerical Matching Scheme for Stability Analysis of Flowing Plasmas

Numerical implementation and numerical properties of a new matching scheme developed for stability analysis of flowing plasmas are presented. Similar with the classical asymptotic matching scheme, the new scheme divides a whole plasma region into two parts: inner layers and outer regions. Before solving the matching problem, the inner layers must be allocated, which should contain resonant surfaces. Regions except for the inner layers are called outer regions, and are governed by the Newcomb equation that is an inertia-less linearized magnetohydrodynamic equation. For flow-less plasmas, resonance occurs at the so-called rational surface; hence, one can identify the rational surface as the inner layer. However, when there exits a flow, fundamental difficulty arises. The resonance occurs somewhere in a finite region and its location is not known a priori; hence, one cannot know where to set the inner layer. The new scheme exploits the inner “region” with finite width. Then, the inner region can contain the resonant surface, even if the location of resonance cannot be prescribed. In the new scheme, singularities are contained in the inner regions, and the Newcomb equation in the outer regions becomes regular; hence, the new scheme is numerically tractable. Also, since the new scheme is based on the boundary layer theory, it can save much computation time.