Initial TCV operation with a baffled divertor

The Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) tokamak is in the midst of an upgrade to further its capability to investigate conventional and alternative divertor configurations. To that end, modular and removable gas baffles have been installed to decrease the coupling between the divertor and the plasma core. The baffles primarily seek to suppress the transit of recycling neutrals to closed flux surfaces. A first experimental campaign with the gas baffles has shown that the baffled divertor remains compatible with a wide range of configurations including snowflake and super-X divertors. Plasma density ramp experiments reveal an increase of the neutral pressure in the divertor by up to a factor ×5 compared to the unbaffled divertor and thereby qualitatively confirm simulations with the SOLPS-ITER code that were used to guide the baffle design. Together with a range of new and upgraded divertor diagnostics, the baffled TCV divertor is now used to validate divertor models for ITER and next step devices with particular emphasis on geometric variations.

WEST Physics Basis

Joan Decker, Javier García Hernández

With WEST (Tungsten Environment in Steady State Tokamak) (Bucalossi et al 2014 Fusion Eng. Des. 89 907-12), the Tore Supra facility and team expertise (Dumont et al 2014 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 56 075020) is used to pave the way towards ITER divertor procurement and operation. It consists in implementing a divertor configuration and installing ITER-like actively cooled tungsten monoblocks in the Tore Supra tokamak, taking full benefit of its unique long-pulse capability. WEST is a user facility platform, open to all ITER partners. This paper describes the physics basis of WEST: the estimated heat flux on the divertor target, the planned heating schemes, the expected behaviour of the L-H threshold and of the pedestal and the potential W sources. A series of operating scenarios has been modelled, showing that ITER-relevant heat fluxes on the divertor can be achieved in WEST long pulse H-mode plasmas.

Iop Publishing Ltd2015

Extremely Shaped Plasmas to Improve the Tokamak Concept

Francesco Piras

Energy is essential for human existence and our future depends on plentiful and accessible sources of energy. The world population is fast growing and the average energy used per capita increases. One of the greatest challenges for human beings is that of meeting the growing demand for energy in a responsible, equitable and sustainable way. The possibility to obtain energy by "fusing" light atoms addresses these needs. Nuclear fusion reactions are clean, safe and the amount of fuel present on Earth (hydrogen isotopes) is practically inexhaustible and well distributed. Nuclear fusion is a natural process that occurs in all active stars like our Sun. Since the first demonstration of a deuterium fusion reaction (Rutherford 1933), researchers worldwide have tried to replicate this process on Earth by building a thermonuclear fusion reactor. Nevertheless, the challenge posed by the construction of a nuclear fusion reactor is greater than the one presented earlier by the development of a fission reactor. During the IAEA Conference in Geneva in the early 1958, L.A.Artsimovich declared: "Plasma physics is very difficult. Worldwide collaboration is needed for progress" and E.Teller, at the same conference: "Fusion technology is very complex. It is almost impossible to build a fusion reactor in this century". They were right. The extremely high temperature and density necessary to fuse hydrogen isotopes makes it difficult indeed to create a successful fusion reactor. Even though the physics of the fusion reaction appears clear, we are still facing problems on the road towards bulding the "box" that can efficiently confine the hot gas in the state of plasma. The best results so far have been obtained confining a plasma with strong magnetic fields in a toroidal configuration ("tokamak"). The Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas in Switzerland actively studies this promising configuration towards the development of a nuclear fusion reactor. The experimental activity of the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) mainly focuses on the research of optimized plasma shapes capable of improving the global performance and solve the technological challenges of a tokamak reactor. Several theoretical and experimental results show the importance of the plasma shape in tokamaks. The maximum value of β (an indicator of the confinement efficiency) is for example related to the ratio between the height and the width of the plasma. The plasma shape can also affect the power necessary to access improved confinement regimes, as well as the plasma stability. This thesis reports on a contribution towards the optimization of the tokamak plasma shape. In particular, it describes the theoretical and experimental studies carried out in the TCV tokamak on two innovative plasma shapes: the doublet shaped plasma and the snowflake divertor. Doublet shaped plasmas have been studied in the past by the General Atomics group. Since then, the development of new plasma diagnostics and the discovery of new confinement regimes have given new reasons for interest in this unusual configuration. TCV is the only tokamak worldwide theoretically able to establish and control this configuration. This thesis illustrates new motivations for creating doublet plasmas. The vertical stability of the configuration is studied using a rigid model and the results are compared with those obtained with the KINX MHD stability code. The best strategy for controlling a doublet on TCV is also investigated, and a possible setup of the TCV control system is suggested for the doublet configuration. Analyzing the possible scenarios for doublet creation, the most promising scenario consists of the creation of two independent plasmas, which are subsequently merged to establish a doublet. For this reason, particular attention needs to be devoted to the problem of the plasma start-up. In this thesis, a general analysis of the TCV ohmic and assisted with ECH plasma start-up is presented, and recent attempts to create a doublet plasma are reported. Since the magnetic field reconstruction at the breakdown time is important to better diagnose these plasmas, the entire magnetic system of TCV has been calibrated with an original technique, also described in the manuscript. The last part of this thesis is devoted to the snowflake divertor configuration. This innovative plasma shape has been proposed and theoretically studied by Dr. D.D.Ryutov from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In Ryutov's articles, this configuration was proposed to alleviate the problems of the plasma-wall interaction and possibly affect the plasma edge stability. The TCV tokamak was the first to report the creation and control of a snowflake configuration, and the candidate was the principal investigator of this work. These results are accordingly discussed in this thesis. Details are provided in particular on the strategy used to establish the configuration. An edge-localized mode (ELM) H-mode regime, supported by electron cyclotron heating, has been successfully established in a snowflake. This regime exhibits 2 to 3 times lower ELM frequency but only a 20%-30% increase in normalized ELM energy (ΔWELM/WP ) compared to an identically-shaped, conventional, single-null, diverted H-mode. Enhanced stability of mid- to high-toroidal-mode-number ideal modes is consistent with the different snowflake ELM phenomenology. Finally, the capability of the snowflake to redistribute the edge power on the additional strike points has been confirmed experimentally and is also reported in this thesis.

EPFL2011

A fast-moving Langmuir probe array for the divertor of the Tokamak à Configuration Variable

Hugo De Oliveira

In next step tokamaks such as ITER and future fusion power plants, wall materials will be subjected to considerably higher heat and particle fluxes than in present-day machines. Maintaining plasma facing components in good condition and simultaneously assuring acceptable core performance will be an outstanding challenge. This situation is further complicated by the fact that extrapolations towards future tokamaks are difficult and the mechanisms governing transport of energy and particles are still being investigated. Proper diagnostic coverage of the boundary plasma of currently operational machines is therefore crucial. In the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV), wall-embedded Langmuir probes (LPs) are one of the most powerful diagnostics to describe local properties in the boundary region of the plasma. The present thesis work includes operation, maintenance and upgrades of this LP system. In particular, the TCV wall probe coverage has been extended from 114 to 194 probes. Furthermore, a new set of amplifiers has been installed, featuring a number of improvements. In parallel, a novel fast probe array, the Reciprocating Divertor Probe Array (RDPA), has been designed, built and commissioned at TCV, providing unprecedented Langmuir probe measurements across the divertor volume. In contrast to reciprocating probes accessing the divertor region of other major tokamaks, the RDPA provides 2D measurements in a single reciprocation, enabled by a radial array of Mach probe tips moved vertically across an extended region of the divertor volume. The RDPA capabilities have allowed for a detailed particle balance study in the outer TCV divertor in attached and detached conditions and both with and without the recently installed divertor baffles. It has been observed that the contribution of the ExB drift to the poloidal ion flux is comparable and sometimes larger than that due to the ion flux parallel to the magnetic field. Except for strongly detached conditions, most of the particle flux arriving at the outer target is shown to be due to ionization along the outer divertor leg, justifying the 'closed-box approximation' frequently used in detachment models and previously inferred on TCV from spectroscopic measurements. ExB drifts also play an important role in terms of heat transport, as found from a divertor heat flux balance study in attached conditions. Together with parallel heat conduction, the ExB-convected heat flux dominates the poloidal heat flux, while parallel heat convection plays a lesser role in the example studied. A new feature of RDPA is also to provide detailed, local measurements of fluctuation characteristics across the divertor volume of TCV, thanks to acquisition frequencies of up to 2MHz. The first findings include the development of a strong poloidal gradient of the density fluctuation level, observed towards the onset of detachment, and the surprising presence of high fluctuation levels in the narrow region of downward ExB (on the high-field side of the peak electron temperature) for well attached discharges. Ongoing efforts focus on using RDPA results to validate the global 3D two-fluid code GBS in diverted TCV simulations and thus helping to improve its predictive capabilities.