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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Self-consistent modeling of tokamak edge plasma transport with lithium sources

Magnetic confinement fusion devices require effective heat and particle exhaust solutions on the divertor plates to operate sustainably, especially under reactor-relevant conditions. Liquid lithium divertors have been proposed to address two major challenges: control of excessive heat flux to plasma-facing components through vapor shielding and minimization of core plasma contamination from impurities. The National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) will explore lithium as a divertor material due to its potential to meet both objectives. We present a self-consistent coupling framework between the plasma boundary transport code UEDGE and the lithium wall transport code Wall–Li to evaluate the feasibility and operational limits of lithium-based divertors. The model aims to optimize lithium sourcing levels to prevent core plasma contamination via fuel dilution while ensuring divertor protection through vapor shielding. This integrated framework, applicable to any tokamak with lithium sources, dynamically adjusts lithium sourcing based on local plasma conditions and surface temperature. The coupled model is tested using NSTX-like geometry and plasma conditions to assess its performance and reliability. Wall–Li calculates lithium fluxes from plasma-facing components, incorporating physical sputtering, thermally enhanced sputtering, and evaporation driven by surface temperature and ion flux. These fluxes are reintroduced into UEDGE as neutral lithium atoms, enabling simulation of their transport and distribution within the plasma. UEDGE computes plasma and neutral transport, surface heat flux, and iteratively feeds this information back to Wall–Li. A small time step is employed to ensure numerical stability and convergence, enabling accurate simulations over typical tokamak discharge durations. This integrated modeling approach provides a robust tool for identifying operational regimes that balance effective lithium sourcing with minimal core plasma contamination, offering critical insights for optimizing lithium-based divertor systems in current and future fusion devices.

Magnetic confinement fusion↗
NASA NTRS1991

Heikkila's mechanism for impulsive plasma transport through the magnetopause - A reexamination

This paper reexamines arguments formulated and restated by Heikkila to the effect that a magnetosheath plasma cloud having 'excess' momentum which impinges on the dayside magnetopause boundary is able to flow continuously through the boundary onto both open and closed flux tubes in the interior. It is shown that the argument used to arrive at this conclusion is not correct. The error in the argument concerns the nature of the flow which is associated with the induction electric field produced by the perturbed current layer, which was assumed by Heikkila to be such as to keep the plasma jet just moving with the boundary. Heikkila's argument, correctly applied, does not lead to 'impulsive transport' of plasma through the magnetopause.

Owen, C. J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Features of terrestrial plasma transport

Research concerning the transport and distribution of ionospheric plasma in the magnetosphere are reviewed, stressing the dichotomy in explanations given for the low plasma densities outside the plasmasphere. The convection/hot solar plasma model and the convection/loss model are considered. Observations of global ionospheric outflows are compared with theoretical studies. It is suggested that there is a need for a hybrid model of magnetospheric plasma in which terrestrial plasma is both lost into the solar wind and energized and trapped within the magnetosphere, inflating the geomagnetic field and excluding cold plasma from conjugate regions.

Moore, T. E.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Numerical simulation of torus-driven plasma transport in the Jovian magnetosphere

The Rice convection model has been modified for application to the transport of Io-generated plasma through the Jovian magnetosphere. The new code, called the RCM-J, has been used for several ideal-magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulations to study how interchange instability causes an initially assumed torus configuration to break up. In simulations that start from a realistic torus configuration but include no energetic particles, the torus disintegrates too quickly (approximately 50 hours). By adding an impounding distribution of energetic particles to suppress the interchange instability, resonable lifetimes were obtained. For cases in which impoundment is insufficient to produce ideal-MHD stability, the torus breaks up predominantly into long fingers, unless the initial condition strongly favors some other geometrical form. If the initial torus has more mass on one side of the planet than the other, fingers form predominatly on the heavy side (which we associate with the active sector). Coriolis force bends the fingers to lag corotation. The simulation results are consistent with the idea that the fingers are formed with a longitudinal thickness that is roughly equal to the latitudinal distance over which the invariant density declines at the outer edges of the initial torus. Our calculations give an average longitudinal distance between plasma fingers of about 15 deg which corresponds to 20 to 30 minutes of rotation of the torus. We point to some Voyager and Ulysses data that are consistent with this scale of torus longitudinal irregularity.

Yang, Y. S.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Divertor detachment characterization in negative triangularity discharges in DIII-D via 2D edge-plasma transport modeling

Edge fluid modeling of the first divertor-plasma detachment experiments in negative triangularity (NT) discharges in the DIII-D tokamak is presented using the 2D multifluid edge transport code UEDGE, including cross-field particle drifts. Experiments were performed where the lower single-null magnetic equilibrium had a strong NT (δ≈−0.5), that is, where the magnetic X-point is at a larger major radius than the core magnetic axis. Divertor-plasma detachment was induced by increasing the core plasma density in DIII-D via intrinsic gas puffing. Here density scans are performed with UEDGE to reach a detached plasma and to quantitatively recover the experimental rollover of the ion saturation current on the outer divertor target plate. The simulations cover experiments with both signs of the toroidal magnetic field, B T , where the ion magnetic Grad-B drifts are directed into (forward B T ) and out of (reverse B T ) the divertor region. Consistent with experiments with neutral beam power injection, the NT simulations reproduce: 40% higher density is needed to reach detachment onset with forward B T compared with reverse B T , and the absence of deep detachment is found with reverse B T . Similarly, comparison between Ohmic discharges in NT and positive triangularity (PT) shaping confirms that a substantially higher density is needed to achieve detachment in NT than in PT, with NT requiring an line-average density of at least the Greenwald density or higher. Simulation results suggest that higher densities are needed to reach detachment in negative compared to PT because these discharges have a shorter midplane-to-target distance along the total magnetic field B, a shorter outer divertor poloidal leg length (0.06 m vs 0.2 m), and reduced radial transport [near-scrape-off layer (SOL) D ⊥ /χ ⊥ =0.3/0.5 vs D ⊥ /χ ⊥ =1.0/1.0, all in (m 2 /s)].

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1984

Research relative to plasma transport across the magnetopause

The concept of how magnetosheath plasma can cross the magnetopause is one of the key elements for a global view of the magnetosphere. According to this view, viscous interaction is the main process to produce convection of plasma in the magnetotail, resulting in auroral phenomena, and other related processes. The mechanism is illustrated herein. The key element is that the electric field is not constant, as assumed in reconnection theories, but reverse within the magnetopause current sheet. Particles, representing magnetosheath ions were traced as they impinge upon the magnetopause.

Heikkila, W. J.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Effects of eletron heating on the current driven electrostatic ion cyclotron instability and plasma transport processes along auroral field lines

Fluid simulations of the plasma along auroral field lines in the return current region have been performed. It is shown that the onset of electrostatic ion cyclotron (EIC) related anomalous resistivity and the consequent heating of electrons leads to a transverse ion temperature that is much higher than that produced by the current driven EIC instability (CDICI) alone. Two processes are presented for the enhancement of ion heating by anomalous resistivity. The anomalous resistivity associated with the turbulence is limited by electron heating, so that CDICI saturates at transverse temperature that is substantially higher than in the absence of resistivity. It is suggested that this process demonstrates a positive feedback loop in the interaction between CDICI, anomalous resistivity, and parallel large-scale dynamics in the topside ionosphere.

Ganguli, Supriya B.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Plasma transport in the Io torus - The importance of microscopic diffusion

This paper considers the question of whether the distribution of mass in the Io plasma torus is consistent with the concept of interchange eddy transport. Specifically, the flux tube content exhibits a gradual decrease with increasing radial distance from the source near Io without any evidence for substantial density irregularity associated with the plasma source or loss. Using a simple one-dimensional numerical model to simulate macroscopic interchange eddy transport, it is demonstrated that this smooth equilibrium distribution of mass can occur but only with the inclusion of a minimal level of small scale microscopic mixing at a rate approaching Bohm diffusion. Otherwise, the system exhibits a chaotic appearance which never approaches an equilibrium distribution. Various physical mechanisms for the microscopic diffusion process which is required to provide a sufficiently rapid mixing of material between the macroscopic eddies are discussed.

Mei, YI↗
NASA NTRS1982

Impulsive plasma transport through the magnetopause

The considered investigation is concerned with a study of the process of localized plasma entry on the basis of first principles. Since the magnetopause often moves at high velocities, an induction electric field must be involved. Attention is given to the case in which the adjacent magnetopause is at rest. Occasionally, a frame moving with the magnetopause in the interaction region is also considered. The employed model is based on the observations provided by ISEE. The considered plasma irregularity, which is denominated a 'cloud', may not have to be a large enhancement in number density or velocity. An examination of the involved physical relations shows that the plasma will create its own electric field, via a polarization current, to make possible a penetration through the magnetopause by the cloud. At the magnetopause the polarization current creates a charge separation electric field which promotes (rather than inhibits) continued flow through the moving magnetopause.

Heikkila, W. J.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Numerical Simulation of Rotation-Driven Plasma Transport In the Jovian Magnetosphere

A Jupiter version of the Rice Convection Model (RCM-J) was developed with support of an earlier NASA SR&T grant. The conversion from Earth to Jupiter included adding currents driven by centrifugal force, reversing the planetary magnetic field, and rescaling various parameters. A series of informative runs was carried out, all of them solving initial value problems. The simulations followed an initial plasma torus configuration as it fell apart by interchange instability. Some conclusions from the simulations were the following: 1. We confirmed that, for conventional values of the torus density and ionospheric conductance, the torus disintegrates by interchange instability on a time scale of approx. one day, which is 1-2 orders of magnitude shorter than the best estimates of the average residence time of plasma in the torus. 2. In the model, the instability could be slowed to an arbitrary degree by the addition of sufficient impounding energetic particles, as suggested earlier by Siscoe et al (1981). However, the observed energetic particles do not seem sufficient to guarantee impoundment (e.g., Mauk et al., 1996). 3. Whether inhibited by impoundment or not, the interchange was found to proceed by the formation of long fingers, which get thinner as they get longer. This picture differed dramatically from the conventional radial-diffusion picture (e.g., Siscoe and Summers (1981)), more superficially with the outward-moving-blob picture (Pontius and Hill, 1989). The obvious limitation of the original RCM-J was that it could not represent a plasma source. We could represent the decay of a pre-existing torus, but we could not represent the way ionization of material from Io continually replenishes the plasma. We consequently were precluded from studying a whole set of fundamental issues of torus theory, including whether the system can come to a steady state.

Wolf, Richard A.↗
NASA NTRS1977

A data acquisition and handling system for the measurement of radial plasma transport rates

A microcomputer serves as a programmable interface between high frequency transient recorders and a digital incremental tape recorder. An interactive program stored in the microcomputer permits the operator to enter various experimental parameters in response to queries from the system. The microcomputer then stores both the experimental parameters and the raw digital data on tape for later processing by a general purpose computer.

Krawczonek, W. M.↗