L. Garzotti

Tritium transport experiments on the JET tokamak

An overview is given of the experimental method, the analysis technique and the results for trace tritium experiments conducted on the JET tokamak in 2003. Observations associated with events such as sawtooth collapses, neo-classical tearing modes and edge localized modes are described. Tritium transport is seen to approach neo-classical levels in the plasma core at high density and low q(95), and in the transport barrier region of internal transport barrier (ITB) discharges. Tritium transport remains well above neo-classical levels in all other cases. The correlation of the measured tritium diffusion coefficient and convection velocity for normalized minor radii r/a = [0.65, 0.80] with the controllable parameters q95 and plasma density are found to be consistent for all operational regimes (ELMy H-mode discharges with or without ion cyclotron frequency resonance heating, hybrid scenario and ITB discharges). Scaling with local physics parameters is best described by gyro-Bohm scaling with an additional inverse beta dependence.

Theoretical description of heavy impurity transport and its application to the modelling of tungsten in JET and ASDEX upgrade

The effects of poloidal asymmetries and heated minority species are shown to be necessary to accurately describe heavy impurity transport in present experiments in JET and ASDEX Upgrade. Plasma rotation, or any small background electrostatic field in the plasma, such as that generated by anisotropic external heating can generate strong poloidal density variation of heavy impurities. These asymmetries have recently been added to numerical tools describing both neoclassical and turbulent transport and can increase neoclassical tungsten transport by an order of magnitude. Modelling predictions of the steady-state two-dimensional tungsten impurity distribution are compared with tomography from soft x-ray diagnostics. The modelling identifies neoclassical transport enhanced by poloidal asymmetries as the dominant mechanism responsible for tungsten accumulation in the central core of the plasma. Depending on the bulk plasma profiles, turbulent diffusion and neoclassical temperature screening can prevent accumulation. Externally heated minority species can significantly enhance temperature screening in ICRH plasmas.

Progress at JET in integrating ITER-relevant core and edge plasmas within the constraints of an ITER-like wall

This paper reports the progress made at JET-ILW on integrating the requirements of the reference ITER baseline scenario with normalized confinement factor of 1, at a normalized pressure of 1.8 together with partially detached divertor whilst maintaining these conditions over many energy confinement times. The 2.5 MA high triangularity ELMy H-modes are studied with two different divertor configurations with D-gas injection and nitrogen seeding. The power load reduction with N seeding is reported. The relationship between an increase in energy confinement and pedestal pressure with triangularity is investigated. The operational space of both plasma configurations is studied together with the ELM energy losses and stability of the pedestal of unseeded and seeded plasmas. The achievement of stationary plasma conditions over many energy confinement times is also reported.

Application of transfer entropy to causality detection and synchronization experiments in tokamaks

Determination of causal-effect relationships can be a difficult task even in the analysis of time series. This is particularly true in the case of complex, nonlinear systems affected by significant ...

ELM frequency feedback control on JET

This paper describes the first development and implementation of a closed loop edge localized mode (ELM) frequency controller using gas injection as the actuator. The controller has been extensively used in recent experiments on JET and it has proved to work well at ELM frequencies in the 15–40xa0Hz range. The controller responds effectively to a variety of disturbances, generally recovering the requested ELM frequency within approximately 500xa0ms. Controlling the ELM frequency has become of prime importance in the new JET configuration with all metal walls, where insufficient ELM frequency is associated with excessive tungsten influx. The controller has allowed successful operation near the minimum acceptable ELM frequency where the best plasma confinement can be achieved. Use of the ELM frequency controller in conjunction with pellet injection has enabled investigations of ELM triggering by pellets while maintaining the desired ELM frequency even when pellets fail to trigger ELMs.

Modelling of JET hybrid scenarios with GLF23 transport model: E???B shear stabilization of anomalous transport

The E???B shear stabilization of anomalous transport in JET hybrid discharges is studied via self-consistent predictive modelling of electron and ion temperature, ion density and toroidal rotation velocity performed with the GLF23 model. The E???B shear stabilization factor (parameter ?E in the GLF23 model) is adjusted to predict accurately the four simulated quantities under different experimental conditions, and the uncertainty in ?E determined by 15% deviation between simulated and measured quantities is estimated. A correlation of ?E with toroidal rotation velocity and E???B shearing rate is found in the low density plasmas, suggesting that the turbulence quench rule may be more complicated than assumed in the GLF23 model with constant ?E. For the selected discharges the best predictive accuracy is obtained by using weak/no E???B shear stabilization (i.e. ?E???0) at low toroidal angular frequency (?? ?100?krad?s?1). Interestingly, a weak E???B shear stabilization of anomalous transport is found in the medium density strongly rotating discharge. An importance of linear ?e stabilization in this discharge is estimated and compared to the low density discharge with equally high ?e. The toroidal rotation velocity is well predicted here by assuming that the momentum diffusion coefficient is a fraction of thermal ion diffusivity. Taking into account the ?E and Prandtl number with their uncertainties determined in the modelling of JET hybrid discharges, the performance of ITER hybrid scenario with optimized heat mix (33?MW of NBI and 20?MW of ECCD) is estimated showing the importance of toroidal rotation for achieving Q?>?5.

Density dependence of trace tritium transport in H-mode Joint European Torus plasma

Tritium transport in edge localized mode (ELM) high confinement (H-mode) plasmas is analyzed here as a function of density for discharges from the recent trace tritium experimental campaign performed on Joint European Torus. In this campaign small amounts of tritium have been puffed or injected (with neutral beam injectors) into deuterium plasmas [K.-D. Zastrow, J. M. Adams, Yu. Baranov et al., Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 46, B255 (2004)]. Information about the tritium has been obtained from the evolution of the profiles of neutron emission simulated via the TRANSP [R. J. Goldston, D. C. McCune, H. H. Towner, S. L. Davis, R. J. Hawryluk, and G. L. Schmidt, J. Comput. Phys. 43, 61 (1981)] and SANCO (L. Lauro-Taroni, B. Alper, R. Giannella, K. Lawson, F. Marcus, M. Mattioli, P. Smeulders, and M. Von Hellermann, Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Controlled Fusion and Plasma Physics, Montpelier, France, 1994) codes. A strong inverse correlation of tritium transport with plasma density is found...

How to assess the efficiency of synchronization experiments in tokamaks

Control of instabilities such as ELMs and sawteeth is considered an important ingredient in the development of reactor-relevant scenarios. Various forms of ELM pacing have been tried in the past to influence their behavior using external perturbations. One of the main problems with these synchronization experiments resides in the fact that ELMs are periodic or quasi-periodic in nature. Therefore, after any pulsed perturbation, if one waits long enough, an ELM is always bound to occur. To evaluate the effectiveness of ELM pacing techniques, it is crucial to determine an appropriate interval over which they can have a real influence and an effective triggering capability. In this paper, three independent statistical methods are described to address this issue: Granger causality, transfer entropy and recurrence plots. The obtained results for JET with the ITER-like wall (ILW) indicate that the proposed techniques agree very well and provide much better estimates than the traditional heuristic criteria reported in the literature. Moreover, their combined use allows for the improvement of the time resolution of the assessment and determination of the efficiency of the pellet triggering in different phases of the same discharge. Therefore, the developed methods can be used to provide a quantitative and statistically robust estimate of the triggering efficiency of ELM pacing under realistic experimental conditions.

Dimensionless scalings of confinement, heat transport and pedestal stability in JET-ILW and comparison with JET-C

Three dimensionless scans in the normalized Larmor radius rho*, normalized collisionality nu* and normalized plasma pressure beta have been performed in JET with the ITER-like wall (JET-ILW). The n ...

Challenges in the extrapolation from DD to DT plasmas: experimental analysis and theory based predictions for JET-DT

A strong modelling program has been started in support of the future JET-DT campaign with the aim of guiding experiments in deuterium (D) towards maximizing fusion energy production in Deuterium–Tritium (DT). Some of the key elements have been identified by using several of the most updated and sophisticated models for predicting heat and particle transport, pedestal pressure and heating sources in an integrated modelling framework. For the high beta and low gas operational regime, the density plays a critical role and a trend towards higher fusion power is obtained at lower densities. Additionally, turbulence stabilization by Eu2009u2009×u2009u2009B flow shear is shown to generate an isotope effect leading to higher confinement for DT than DD and therefore plasmas with high torque are suitable for maximizing fusion performance. Future JET campaigns will benefit from this modelling activity by defining clear priorities on their scientific program.