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CONTENTS
Director's Corner C. M. GreenfieldUSBPO Topical Group Highlights Observation of Localized Fast-Ion Heat Loads in Test Blanket Module Simulation Experiments on DIII-DG.J. Kramer, et al.
ITPA Report Summary of the 8th Meeting of the ITPA Energetic Particle Topical Group
Don Spong
Announcements Upcoming Burning Plasma-related Events 2012 Events
Dear Burning Plasma Aficionados:
This newsletter provides a short update on U.S. Burning Plasma Organization activities. Comments on articles in the newsletter may be sent to the editor (Dylan Brennan) or assistant editor (Amadeo Gonzales).
Thank you for your interest in Burning Plasma research in the U.S.!
Director's Corner by C. M. Greenfield
Thank you and Farewell to Rita Wilkinson
Rita Wilkinson |
In case you were wondering, the Director of the USBPO doesn't do everything himself. There are two people without whom it would all fall apart. One is Jim DeKock, USBPO Communications Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin, who keeps the USBPO website, databases, mailing lists, forums, and other electronic communications working. The second is our Administrator. Rita Wilkinson (photo) of the University of Texas has been the USBPO Administrator for the last three years, but has now moved to a different position within the University. The USBPO leadership is grateful for Rita's great work during that time, and we wish her the best in her new position. We also welcome Amadeo Gonzalez, also of University of Texas, who has now assumed the administrator position.
Research in Support of ITER at APS-DPP
As you remember, last year's APS Division of Plasma Physics meeting for the fourth year included a contributed oral session on Research in Support of ITER, which included a total of 15 talks from US and foreign participants. These sessions have become quite popular, and are always well attended.Following up on last year's success, the US Burning Plasma Organization is organizing a similar session for the 54th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics, which will take place in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 29 - November 2. As was the case last year, we are looking for talks on research that has been done to address ITER issues. These brief talks are 10 minutes in duration, followed by a 2 minute discussion period. We hope to have broad participation once again, so we can highlight the breadth of this work and the institutions performing it.
If you, or somebody from your institution, are interested in making a presentation in this session, please send me the title and author's contact information as soon as possible (but no later than June 22). The abstract should also be submitted via the conference website no later than 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time on July 13. Please indicate "Research in Support of ITER" in the placement requests box. Abstracts not selected for the ITER session can be placed in other sessions by the APS DPP.
The Chair of the Program Committee has already given us his approval to proceed with the session for this year's meeting. It is our hope that these sessions will continue every year for the foreseeable future.
The 6th ITER International School
As I told you in a recent announcement, the 6th ITER International School will be held in Ahmedabad, India, December 2-6, 2012. This year's focus will be on RF heating and current drive in plasmas, and information can be found at http://www.iter-india.org/iis2012. Last year, the USBPO provided 8 travel scholarships to graduate students and post-docs, and, this year, we're delighted to be able to provide scholarships again to a select number of students and post-docs. Details of the application and selection processes for this year's travel scholarships will be sent shortly to all USBPO members by email.US Burning Plasma Organization Council election
I am happy to announce the results of the recent USBPO Council election, where Anne White of MIT and Jon Menard of PPPL were elected. Anne and Jon were selected from an excellent slate of candidates that had been put together by our nominating committee (Michael Bell, George McKee, Wayne Meier, Phil Snyder, and François Waelbroeck) based on your suggestions. Following the election, and in accordance with the USBPO bylaws, I appointed two additional members to fill out the Council. They are Mark Koepke of West Virginia University and Clement Wong of General Atomics.The final task in assembling the 2012-13 USBPO Council was to name a new Chair and Vice Chair. I am very happy to be able to tell you that Jon Menard has agreed to assume the chairmanship, with Mark Koepke becoming the new Vice Chair.
I look forward to serving with the new Council, and wish to thank the outgoing members: Mike Mauel (Chair), Michael Bell (Vice Chair), Phil Snyder, and Wayne Meier. I am particularly grateful to Mike and Michael for their help and advice since I became Director.
Now that the new Council is in place, our next step will be to appoint successors for five Topical Group leaders whose term expires this summer. The entire current leadership is shown in the table below, including the year when the leaders' (not the deputy leaders) term expires:
Topical Group | Year |
Leader | Deputy Leader |
Energetic Particles | 2013 | Eric Fredrickson (PPPL) | David Pace (GA) |
Fusion Engineering Science | 2013 | Larry Baylor (ORNL) | Russ Doerner (UCSD) |
Operations and Control | 2013 | Michael Walker (GA) | Egemen Kolemen (PPPL) |
Pedestal and Divertor/SOL | 2013 | Tony Leonard (GA) | Rajesh Maingi (ORNL) |
Plasma-Wave Interactions | 2013 | Gary Taylor (PPPL) | David Green (ORNL) |
Confinement and Transport | 2012 | John Rice (MIT) | George McKee (Wisconsin) |
Diagnostics | 2012 | Jim Terry (MIT) | David Brower (UCLA) |
Integrated Scenarios | 2012 | John Ferron (GA) | Stefan Gerhardt (PPPL) |
MHD, Macroscopic Plasma Physics | 2012 | Ted Strait (GA) | François Waelbroeck (Texas) |
Modeling and Simulation | 2012 | Dylan Brennan (Tulsa) | David Mikkelsen (PPPL) |
Members of each of these groups should have received a request for nominations from the leader of their respective groups. I encourage you to nominate yourself, your friends, your enemies... anybody who you think would be a good candidate. You may also send your suggestions directly to me and Deputy Director Amanda Hubbard, by June 20.
USBPO Task Groups
I have posted an executive summary and a full report from the Disruption Workshop in the forum ( https://burningplasma.org/forum/index.php?showforum=149 ); scroll down to the third post in the US Disruption Mitigation Workshop discussion. The Disruption Task Group, led by Bob Granetz and John Wesley, is working on a research plan that moves us toward the goal of specifying ITER's DMS, a US responsibility. Please contact Bob or John if you'd like to participate.A new FESAC charge
( http://science.energy.gov/~/media/fes/fesac/pdf/FESAC-Charge-04132012.pdf ) has been issued to consider scientific priorities for magnetic fusion. The USBPO will host a summer-long "Virtual Forum" to encourage community discussion among fusion scientists and technology experts and to formulate community input to the FESAC process. The quot;Virtual Forum" will be facilitated by a USBPO Task Group, make extensive use of our password-protected Website ( https://burningplasma.org/forum ), and report to the USBPO Directorate and Council. Membership in this Task Group, as well as the relatively short-lived time scale and details of the Forum, will be announced shortly.The task group on modes of collaboration on ITER (see the previous issue of eNews) will start organizing soon, with Rajesh Maingi (ORNL) as its leader. Information on participation will be forthcoming.
Must See TV – but you have to learn French
A local TV network in France, in conjunction with the ITER project, has been producing a series of programs about ITER. These can be found at http://www.iter.org/video (click on "ITER on Local TV" at the left). There is also a fairly extensive collection of other video material there.
USBPO Topical Group Highlights
(Editors note: The BPO Energetic Particles Topical Group works to facilitate
U.S. efforts to understand the behavior of energetic particles via improved
measurements and computational models for existing and future magnetic fusion
devices [leaders are Eric Fredrickson and David Pace]. This month's Research
Highlight by G.J. Kramer et al. examines the capabilities of some of the most
advanced particle codes to predict intense localized heat deposition to the
walls in ITER caused by distortions in the magnetic fields from ferritic steel
in test blanket modules (TBMs) surrounding the plasma. This is an extremely
important issue as these "hot spots" could potentially threaten the integrity
of the first wall if left unmitigated. The simulations are compared to TBM
experiments on the DIII-D experiment..)
Observation of Localized Fast-Ion Heat Loads in Test
Blanket Module Simulation Experiments on DIII-D
G.J. Kramer1, A. McLean2, N.
Brooks3, R.V. Budny1, R. Ellis1, W.W.
Heidbrink4, T. Kurki-Suonio5, R. Nazikian1, T.
Koskela5, M.J. Schaffer3,
K. Shinohara6, J.A. Snipes7, D.A. Spong8, M.A. Van
Zeeland3
1Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, P.O.Box 451, Princeton,
New Jersey 08543, USA,
2Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA,
3General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186, USA,
4University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA,
5Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland,
6JAEA, Japan,
7ITER Organization, Route de Vinon sur Verdon, 13115 St. Paul lez Durance,
France,
8Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA.
The ITER plasma is confined by very precise magnetic fields. Experiments with six Test Blanket Modules (TBMs), two in each of three equatorial ports, are planned for ITER to study tritium breeding using the 14 MeV D-T fusion neutrons. The TBMs contain a significant amount of ferritic steel, and therefore,the TBMs will create three highly localized toroidal distortions of the magnetic field which can reduce the confinement of the fusion-born alpha particles and the 1 MeV beam ions. The lost fast-ions, mostly from near the plasma edge, can create intense hot spots on the surface of the TBMs which can potentially threaten the integrity of the first wall near the TBMs. It is therefore important to validate simulations of localized heat loads from lost fast-ions caused by the TBM fields to design the first wall and mitigate the effects of the hot spots. As part of that effort, a careful benchmark was done of the simulation codes [3-6] against an experiment simulating the magnetic perturbation from a TBM on DIII-D [1,2]. To improve the data signal to noise ratio, three times the local error field anticipated in front of the ITER TBM ports was used. The DIII-D plasma is heated with up to 20 MW of neutral deuterium accelerated to 80 keV, simulating the energetic fusion alphas and neutral beams expected in ITER. Present calculations predict heat loads substantially lower than the 4 MW/m2 that the TBM protective structures are designed to handle, but further work is needed.
In a series of DIII-D experiments the hot spots on the protective tiles of the mock TBMs for ITER were directly imaged with an Infra-Red (IR) camera (Fig. 1). The IR imaging provides a better validation of orbit following codes than heat loads deduced from thermocouple measurements at the back of the 2.5 cm thick protective carbon tiles [2]. Hot spots were seen on the carbon protective tiles indicating they reached temperatures over 1000 C. The measured IR images can now be compared directly with predictions for TBM-induced heat loads on the DIII-D first wall to help improve the fast ion loss modeling. Heat loads were obtained from neutral beam injection (NBI) at a range of pitch angles by using the co-, counter, and off-axis beam lines of DIII-D.
FIG 1: Heat loads in similar discharges: (a) 3.3 MW ECRH with TBM fields (147644), (b) 3 MW of NBI with TBM fields (147592), and (c) 2 MW of NBI without TBM fields (147646). The four tiles outlined in yellow protect the TBM mock-up module, and are flush with the surrounding vessel protection tiles. |
Recent experiments also differentiated between plasma thermal heat loads and heat loads from lost beam ions on the TBM by using Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) with comparable power to neutral beam injection. No hot spots were observed in ECRH only discharges with the TBM fields (Fig. 1a) while in similar NBI heated discharges hot spots appeared (Fig. 1b). No hot spots were observed in NBI heated discharges without TBM fields (Fig. 1c), demonstrating that beam-ions in combination with the TBM fields produce the observed hot spots on the TBM protective tiles in DIII-D.
FIG 2: (a) Measured heat loads (174603) compared with simulated heat loads for a similar discharge calculated with the (b) SPIRAL, (c) ASCOT, and (d) OFMC codes. The protective TBM tiles are indicated with the yellow lines. In the modeling flat tiles were used while in the experiments they have beveled edges. |
The beam-ion loss simulations, shown in Fig. 2, are in good agreement with infrared imaging of hot spots on DIII-D. Both the localization and peak intensity of the hot spots are in good agreement with simulations using a range of codes: ASCOT [3], SPIRAL [4], and OFMC [5]. The orbit calculations take into account the birth profile of the beam ions as well as the scattering and slowing down of the ions as they interact with the localized TBM field. The orbit-following ASCOT, OFMC, and SPIRAL codes, which add the vacuum TBM fields as a perturbation to plasma equilibrium fields, all broadly agreed on the total power deposited in the hot spot but they differ on the details of the shape, location, and peak heat load. The numerical analysis indicates that the dominant beam ion loss comes from beam ions deposited near the plasma edge. The close agreement between orbit calculations and measurements validate the analysis of beam ion loss calculations for ITER where ferritic material inside the tritium breeding TBMs is expected to produce localized hot spots on the first wall.
Of the four orbit-following codes used in the current benchmark study, two codes, OFMC and DELTA5D [6], use the guiding center approximation while the other two, SPIRAL and ASCOT, calculate the full particle orbit. To first order, the energetic ions in both DIII-D and ITER spiral around the field lines, with orbits with radii of several cm, the Larmor radius. In the guiding center approximation, only the drifts of the ions off of the field lines are followed. The drift orbits, in static fields, can be found from a Hamiltonian formulation with the assumption that field gradient scale length is much greater than the Larmor radius. The DELTA5D code uses a 3-D equilibrium as calculated with the VMEC code that includes the plasma response to the TBM fields while the other three codes add the vacuum TBM fields as a perturbation to plasma equilibrium fields.
The DELTA5D code, which used the 3-D VMEC equilibrium, did not agree well with the thermocouple data due to the difficulties in VMEC of simultaneously resolving the short scale local TBM disturbance (toroidal mode number n ~ 30-40), longer scale TBM global variation (n = 1), and the mesoscale coupling modes. The IR images in the recent experiments confirmed this finding and validated the effectiveness of vacuum field calculations in predicting the energetic ion losses to the TBM tiles, suggesting that the self consistent plasma response to the TBM fields is not a significant contributor to the loss measurements.
This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under DE-AC02-09CH11466, SC-G903402, DE-FC02-04ER54698 and DE-AC05-00OR22725. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the ITER Organization.
References
- M.J. Schaffer, et al., Nucl. Fusion 51, 103028 (2011).
- G.J. Kramer, et al., Nucl. Fusion 51, 103029 (2011).
- J.A. Heikkinen, and S.K. Sipilä, Phys. Plasmas 2, 724 (1995).
- G.J. Kramer, et al., Fusion Energy Conference 2008 (Proc. 22nd Int. Conf., Geneva, 2008) CD-ROM file IT/P6-3, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Meetings/FEC2008/it p6-3.pdf
- K. Tani, et al., Journal of Phys. Soc. Jpn. 50, 1726 (1981).
- D.A. Spong, et al., Plasma Phys. Report 23, 483 (1997).
ITPA Report
Don Spong (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
The 8th Meeting of the ITPA Energetic Particle (EP) Topical Group was held at the Institute for Fusion Studies in Toki, Japan on March 7-9 following the US-Japan MHD Workshop (held March 5-7). The technical part of the meeting was organized by ITPA-EP chair Kouji Shinohara. About 30 participants were present and 25 presentations were given; the talks are posted at the ITER site:
https://portal.iter.org/departments/POP/ITPA/EP/Pages/default.aspx(access requires username/password) under the March 8 and 9th EP folders of the 8th ITPA Meeting. In addition to EP sessions, two joint sessions with the ITPA MHD group were held on the afternoon of March 7 and morning of March 8. The joint sessions focused on disruption mitigation, dense gas injection, field error estimation, and runaway electron simulation/control/measurements; these topics remain challenging issues for ITER operation. The EP part of the meeting consisted of reports on continuing efforts in areas such as joint experiments and joint modeling/benchmarking along with presentations on fast ion confinement studies and new experimental results. Each area is summarized below.
Joint Experiments
The joint ITPA experimental tasks in energetic particle physics are: EP-2 (Fast ion loss and redistribution from localized Alfvén instabilities), EP-3 (Interaction between fast ions and turbulence), EP-4 (Effect of dynamical friction at resonance on nonlinear Alfvén mode evolution), EP-5 (Test Blanket Module (TBM) induced fast ion losses with internal MHD activity), and EP-6 (Fast-ion losses due to external magnetic perturbations). During this meeting, presentations were given on tasks EP-3, EP-4, and EP-6.EP-3
(D. Pace) The status of a gyrokinetic benchmark for microturbulence-driven fast ion transport using experimentally measured profiles from DIII-D was reviewed and revised plans for these activities in 2012 discussed. This topic is of interest due to its potential for reduced Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) current drive efficiency in current experiments as well as in ITER. To focus simulation efforts, two well-diagnosed, matched DIII-D discharges with different values of the electron to ion temperature ratio (Te/Ti) have been identified and will be made available.
EP-4
(S. Sharapov) The LHD and MAST experiments have participated in this task. On LHD both bursting and steady-state Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmodes (TAE's) have been observed. The bursting modes were in agreement with theory, but additional non-Coulomb scattering mechanisms (possibly related to the stochastic plasma edge layer) were needed to explain the steady-state regime. On MAST a magnetic field scan in parallel with an electron temperature scan allowed a large range of EA/Ecrit = 0.74 to 5.84 to be sampled (EA is the energy based on the Alfvén velocity, Ecrit is the critical slowing-down energy). Modes with strong frequency sweeping and amplitude bursting were observed over most of this range.
EP-6
(M. Garcia-Munoz) Enhancements in fast ion transport are often correlated with external magnetic perturbation coils (MP) used for Edge Localized Mode (ELM) suppression. These effects have been studied on DIII-D, AUG, and, more recently, KSTAR. In DIII-D rotating n = 2 I-coil fields induce prompt NBI losses; fast ion loss detectors (FILD) observe losses that are modulated at the I-coil frequency due to modification of the edge density and NBI birth profile. AUG and KSTAR also see large fast ion losses that are correlated with MP coil currents. Losses up to 6 times the normal NBI loss (without MP fields) have been observed. These measurements will continue and MAST may join EP-6; many key ingredients are still missing in order to extrapolate these effects to ITER.
Following these talks, a new topic for joint experiments, Alfvén instability suppression by ECRH was discussed. This will be led by M. Van Zeeland and is to be discussed further at the fall ITPA-EP meeting in San Diego. The experiments that will be involved in this topic will be AUG (I. Classen), DIII-D (M. Van Zeeland) and TCV (A. Fasoli)
Joint Modeling/Benchmarking
From the previous meetings a linear stability n = 6 TAE benchmark case had been developed by A. Könies. Nine codes (HMGC, GYGLES, CKA-EUTERPE, CAS3D-K, LIGKA, MEGA, VENUS, TAEFL and AE3D-K) have now been applied to this case. Updated results were reported and this effort will be the topic of a joint IAEA paper. The stability of this case has been studied as the fast ion energy is varied; growth rates from a central cluster of the results are now in agreement to within about 30%. In addition, this same case has been used for nonlinear studies. Nonlinear results for this case were presented from MEGA (Y. Todo), TAEFL (D. Spong) and HMGC (S. Briguglio) models. For the nonlinear runs, the fast ion density was varied and the scaling of the saturation levels with the linear growth rate to real frequency ratio γ/ ωreal compared. Typically, a stronger scaling exponent with γ/ ωreal was found at lower values of γ/ ωreal than at higher values; this has been explained (Y. Todo) as due to a transition in the saturation mechanism from wave-particle trapping to saturation via MHD nonlinear couplings.Several proposals for future benchmark cases were discussed. P. Lauber presented results for an n=5 mode ITER case (the 9MA steady state scenario). A similar case was analyzed by Y. Todo for mode numbers n=12 to 22. S. Sharapov presented an experimental case from the afterglow phase of JET DT operation where an n = 4 core-localized mode was unstable. Profiles and equilibria from both ITER and JET cases are available for analysis by other codes. Additional topics reported in this session include: simulation of EP transport in JT-60U during large amplitude events (A. Bierwage), scenarios for alpha-driven TAE's in future DT campaigns on JET (S. Sharapov), and ρ*EP (ratio of EP gyroradius to minor radius) scalings of Alfvén instabilities in the ITER steady state regime (D. Spong).
Fast Ion Confinement Studies
Three talks focused on Monte Carlo modeling of EP losses in the presence of various magnetic perturbations. P. Aleynikov modeled NBI losses in ITER with Resonant Magnetic Perturbation (RMP) coils. Using the DRIFT code, losses of about 8% were predicted for ITER scenario 4, based on current data from the ITER online document management system (IDM). These were smaller that an earlier prediction (16.5%) made by K. Tani, but based on different plasma profiles.K. Tani discussed development of a new gyro-orbit following Monte Carlo code at JAEA. This uses an implicit (2-stage, 4th order) Runge Kutta method and a new Coulomb collision model based on the Trubnikov model. It has been applied to fast ion loss in the presence of ELM coil perturbations and gives similar results as the earlier guiding-center orbit model.
T. Kurki-Suonio presented ASCOT simulations of alpha and NBI confinement for a variety of ITER cases. With ELM mitigation coils, NBI power losses from 3 to 30% were obtained, depending on the equilibrium and pedestal models used. The higher losses were associated with a large edge stochastic layer width, which may be an artifact of the 2D equilibrium + 3D perturbed magnetic field model that was used. ASCOT has recently been extended to include models for both stationary (Neoclassical Tearing Mode (NTM)) and rotating (AE) MHD modes.
Alfvén stability phenomena
E. Fredrickson presented new results in the modeling of fast ion redistribution by TAE avalanches in NSTX H-mode plasmas. A combination of the NOVA-K model and reflectometer measurements are used to determine the instability mode structure. This is then included in the ORBIT code to simulate the effect of the TAE avalanche on fast ion transport. While only small changes in fast ion transport are predicted for the measured mode amplitudes, the instability does lead to a ~4% drop in the energy of the fast ion population, due to wave-particle energy transfers. This is enough to explain the observed ~10% drops in neutron rate without requiring any enhanced EP transport.M. Osakabe presented results from LHD indicative of thermal ion heating by EP-driven modes, which has long been a goal for EP physics. By operating at rather low densities [ne(0) ≤ 1018 m-3] an n=0/m=2 up-chirping (bursting) mode is driven; the variation of frequency with electron temperature indicates this may be an EP-driven Geodesic Acoustic Mode (GAM). A clear correlation in time was seen between amplitude variations in this mode and increases in bulk ion temperature (as measured by the slope of the low energy neutral particle flux).
The meeting concluded with a discussion of the role of fast ion loss detectors (FILD) in ITER. This diagnostic is not currently planned for ITER, but it was decided it is sufficiently important to merit further effort at convincing the ITER IO to reconsider it. The next fall ITPA-EP meeting will be held in San Diego, CA on October 15-17 following the 2012 IAEA Fusion Energy Conference.
Announcements
Submit BPO-related announcements for next month’s eNews to
Dylan Brennan.
"ITER Research Needs" a report by David Campbell, Plasma Operation Directorate, ITER Project, presented to the ITPA Coordinating Committee, Cadarache, France; December 12, 2011.
Upcoming Burning Plasma Events
View a list of previously concluded events here.
2012 Events |
Jul 8-12, 2012 39th IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS2012) Edinburg, UNITED KINGDOM |
Jul 10 and 11, 2012 Sixth US-PRC Magnetic Fusion Collaboration Workshop (contact Dr. George Tynan for information) San Diego, CA USA |
Aug 27-31, 2012 American Nuclear Society 20th Technology of Fusion Energy Conference (TOFE) Nashville, TN USA |
Sep 2-7, 2012 Joint IAEA NFRI Technical Meeting on Data Evaluation for Atomic, Molecular and Plasma-Material Interaction Processes in Fusion Daejeon, KOREA |
Oct 8-13, 2012 24th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference San Diego, CA USA |
Oct 15-17/18, 2012 ITPA T&C, MHD, PEP, EP, IOS, DSOL San Diego, CA USA |
Oct 29 - Nov 2, 2012 54th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics Providence, RI USA |
November 2012 ITPA Diagnostics INDIA |
December 2012 ITPA CC & CTP-ITPA Joint Experiments and CTP Cadarache, FRANCE |
View a list of other Plasma Events Directories here.
Please contact the administrator with additions and corrections.