Mario Gagliardi

The targeted heating and current drive applications for the ITER electron cyclotron system

A 24 MW Electron Cyclotron (EC) system operating at 170 GHz and 3600 s pulse length is to be installed on ITER. The EC plant shall deliver 20 MW of this power to the plasma for Heating and Current Drive (H&CD) applications. The EC system is designed for plasma initiation, central heating, current drive, current profile tailoring, and Magneto-hydrodynamic control (in particular, sawteeth and Neo-classical Tearing Mode) in the flat-top phase of the plasma. A preliminary design review was performed in 2012, which identified a need for extended application of the EC system to the plasma ramp-up, flattop, and ramp down phases of ITER plasma pulse. The various functionalities are prioritized based on those applications, which can be uniquely addressed with the EC system in contrast to other H&CD systems. An initial attempt has been developed at prioritizing the allocated H&CD applications for the three scenarios envisioned: ELMy H-mode (15 MA), Hybrid (∼12 MA), and Advanced (∼9 MA) scenarios. This leads to the ...

ITER fast ion confinement in the presence of the European test blanket module

This paper addresses the confinement of thermonuclear alpha particles and neutral beam injected deuterons in the 15 MA Q = 10 inductive scenario in the presence of the magnetic perturbation caused by the helium cooled pebble bed test blanket module using the vacuum approximation. Both the flat top phase and plasma ramp-up are studied. The transport of fast ions is calculated using the Monte Carlo guiding center orbit-following code ASCOT. A detailed three-dimensional wall, derived from the ITER blanket module CAD data, is used for evaluating the fast ion wall loads. The effect of the test blanket module is studied for both overall confinement and possible hot spots. The study indicates that the test blanket modules do not significantly deteriorate the fast ion confinement.

Effect of plasma response on the fast ion losses due to ELM control coils in ITER

Mitigating edge localized modes (ELMs) with resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) can increase energetic particle losses and resulting wall loads, which have previously been studied in the vacuum approximation. This paper presents recent results of fusion alpha and NBI ion losses in the ITER baseline scenario modelled with the Monte Carlo orbit following code ASCOT in a realistic magnetic field including the effect of the plasma response. The response was found to reduce alpha particle losses but increase NBI losses, with up to 4.2% of the injected power being lost. Additionally, some of the load in the divertor was found to be shifted away from the target plates toward the divertor dome.

The ITER EC H&CD upper launcher: Methodology in the FEM analyses of the diamond window unit subject to seismic and baking loads

The ITER electron cyclotron upper launcher (EC UL) is used to direct high power microwave beams generated by the gyrotrons into the plasma for magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) control and heating and current drive (H&CD) applications. The UL consists of an assembly of ex-vessel waveguides (WGs) and an in-vessel port plug. The diamond window units form vacuum and tritium confinement boundaries between the torus volume and the transmission lines (TLs) which guide beams between 1 and 2 MW from the gyrotrons to the launcher.

Calculating the 3D magnetic field of ITER for European TBM studies

The magnetic perturbation due to the ferromagnetic test blanket modules (TBMs) may deteriorate fast ion confinement in ITER. This effect must be quantified by numerical studies in 3D. We have implemented a combined finite element method (FEM) – Biot-Savart law integrator method (BSLIM) to calculate the ITER 3D magnetic field and vector potential in detail. Unavoidable geometry simplifications changed the mass of the TBMs and ferritic inserts (FIs) up to 26%. This has been compensated for by modifying the nonlinear ferromagnetic material properties accordingly. Despite the simplifications, the computation geometry and the calculated fields are highly detailed. The combination of careful FEM mesh design and using BSLIM enables the use of the fields unsmoothed for particle orbit-following simulations. The magnetic field was found to agree with earlier calculations and revealed finer details. The vector potential is intended to serve as input for plasma shielding calculations.

Protecting ITER walls: Fast ion power loads in 3D magnetic field

The fusion alpha and beam ion with steady-state power loads in all four main operating scenarios of ITER have been evaluated by the ASCOT code. For this purpose, high-fidelity magnetic backgrounds were reconstructed, taking into account even the internal structure of the ferritic inserts and tritium breeding modules (TBM). The beam ions were found to be almost perfectly confined in all scenarios, and only the so-called hybrid scenario featured alpha loads reaching 0.5 MW due to its more triangular plasma. The TBMs were not found to jeopardize the alpha confinement, nor cause any hot spots. Including plasma response did not bring dramatic changes to the load. The ELM control coils (ECC) were simulated in the baseline scenario and found to seriously deteriorate even the beam confinement. However, the edge perturbation in this case is so large that the sources have to be re-evaluated with plasma profiles that take into account the ECC perturbation.

Effect of the European design of TBMs on ITER wall loads due to fast ions in the baseline (15 MA), hybrid (12.5 MA), steady-state (9 MA) and half-field (7.5 MA) scenarios

We assess the effect of the European design of the pebble-bed helium-cooled test blanket modules (TBM) on fast ion power loads on ITER material surfaces. For this purpose, the effect of not only the TBMs but also the ferritic inserts (FI), used for mitigating the toroidal field ripple, were included in unprecedented detail in the reconstruction of the 3-dimensional magnetic field. This is important because, due to their low collisionality, fast ions follow the magnetic geometry much more faithfully than the thermal plasma. The Monte Carlo orbit-following code ASCOT was used to simulate all the foreseen operating scenarios of ITER: the baseline 15 MA standard H-mode operation, the 12.5 MA hybrid scenario, the 9 MA advanced scenario, and the half-field scenario with helium plasma that will be ITERs initial operating scenario. The effect of TBMs was assessed by carrying out the simulations in pairs: one including only the effect of ferritic inserts, and the other including also the perturbation due to TBMs. Both thermonuclear fusion alphas and NBI ions from ITER heating beams were addressed. The TBMs are found to increase the power loads, but the absolute values remain small. Neither do they produce any additional hot spots.