Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 523 records · Page 29

Tango

Tango is a transport solver intended for coupling with codes that return turbulent fluxes. In many physics problems, including magnetically confined fusion plasmas such as a tokamak, a separation of timescales exists between the timescale of turbulence and the timescale for evolution of mean, macroscopic quantities such as density and temperature in response to turbulent fluxes. In the numerical simulation of such scenarios, it is desirable to efficiently exploit the separation of timescales. Furthermore, because in general the turbulent fluxes depend nonlinearly on the macroscopic quantities and their derivatives, certain numerical instabilities arise and special methods are required to handle them.

Parker, Jeff↗

Hermes-3

Hermes-3 is a plasma simulation model built on BOUT++, developed as part of research studies of the edge and divertor regions of magnetically confined fusion plasmas such as tokamaks. The main purpose of this model is multi-species simulation of plasmas containing a mixture of deuterium, tritium, helium and other plasma and neutral gas species.

Dudson, BenjaminD↗

Overview of innovative PMI research on NSTX-U and associated PMI facilities at PPPL

Developing a reactor compatible divertor and managing the associated plasma material interaction (PMI) has been identified as a high priority research area for magnetic confinement fusion. Accordingly on NSTX-U, the PMI research has received a strong emphasis. Moreover, with ˜15 MW of auxiliary heating power, NSTX-U will be able to test the PMI physics with the peak divertor plasma facing component (PFC) heat loads of up to 40-60 MW/m 2 .

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Kinetic Plasma Simulation in the MOOSE Framework: Verification of Electrostatic Particle In Cell Capabilities

In magnetic confinement nuclear fusion reactors, the interaction between the plasma edge and plasma facing components is extremely important. At the plasma edge, a kinetic representation such as particle-in-cell (rather than a fluid representation) is required to accurately capture the plasma behavior. General purpose particle-in-cell plasma simulation capabilities have been developed in the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework. This new capability is a part of the development of a new MOOSE-based framework for modeling plasma facing components, the Fusion ENergy Integrated multiphys-X (FENIX) framework. In this work, the verification of foundational particle-in-cell capabilities in FENIX is presented. This new plasma simulation capability has three main components: moving particles in discrete steps on the finite element mesh, mapping charge density from the particle's location to the finite element mesh, and solving for the electrostatic potential based on the charge density mapped from particles to the mesh. In this paper, simple verification problems demonstrating each of these new capabilities are presented, and future work includes electromagnetic capabilities and Monte Carlo collisions with neutral gas particles.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Pushing Particles with Waves: Current Drive and α -Channeling

It can be advantageous to push particles with waves in tokamaks or other magnetic confinement devices, relying on wave-particle resonances to accomplish specific goals. Waves that damp on electrons or ions in toroidal fusion devises can drive currents if the waves are launched with toroidal asymmetry. Theses currents are important for tokamaks, since they operate in the absence of an electric field with curl, enabling steady state operation. The lower hybrid wave and the electron cyclotron wave have been demonstrated to drive significant currents. Non-inductive current also stabilizes deleterious tearing modes. Waves can also be used to broker the energy transfer between energetic alpha particles and the background plasma. Alpha particles born through fusion reactions in a tokamak reactor tend to slow down on electrons, but that could take up to hundreds of milliseconds. Before that happens, the energy in these alpha particles can destabilize on collisionless timescales toroidal Alfven modes and other waves, in a way deleterious to energy confinement. However, it has been speculated that this energy might be instead be channeled instead into useful energy, that heats fuel ions or drives current. Furthermore, an important question is the extent to which these effects can be accomplished together.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

On the Effect of Beating during Nonlinear Frequency Chirping

Spectroscopic analyses of energetic particle (EP) driven bursts of MHD fluctuations in magnetically confined plasmas often exhibit chirps that occur simultaneously in groups of two or more. While the superposition of oscillations at multiple frequencies necessarily causes beating in the signal acquired by a localized external probe, self-consistent hybrid simulations of chirping EP modes in a JT-60U tokamak plasma have demonstrated the possibility of global beating, where the mode's electromagnetic field vanishes globally between beats and reappears with opposite phase [Bierwage et al., Nucl. Fusion 57, 016036 (2017)]. This implies that there can be a single coherent field mode that oscillates at multiple frequencies simultaneously when it is resonantly driven by multiple density waves in EP phase space. Conversely, this means that the EP density waves are mutually coupled and interfere with each other via the jointly driven field, a mechanism ignored in some theories of chirping. In this thesis-style treatise, we study the role of field pulsations in general and beating in particular using the Hamiltonian guiding center orbit-following code ORBIT with a reduced wave-particle interaction model in realistic geometry. Beating is found to drive the evolution of EP phase space structures. Additionally, a key mechanism is the pulsation of effective phase space islands combined with the alternation of their effective O- and X-points due to phase jumps between each beat. Observations: (1) Beating causes density wave fronts to advance radially in a pulsed manner and the resulting chirps become staircase-like. (2) The pulsations facilitate convective transfer of material between neighboring layers of phase space density waves. On the one hand, this may inhibit the early detachment of solitary phase space vortices. On the other hand, it facilitates the accumulation of hole and clump fragments into larger structures. (3) Long-range chirping is observed when massive holes or clumps detach and drift away from the turbulent belt around the seed resonance. It is remarkable that the detached vortices remain robust and,on average, maintain their concentric nested layers while being visibly perturbed by the field's continued beating.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Theoretical Study of Radiation from a Broad Range of Impurity Ions for Magnetic Fusion Diagnostics

Spectroscopy of radiation emitted by impurities plays an important role in the study of magnetically confined fusion plasmas. The measurements of these impurities are crucial for the control of the general machine conditions, for the monitoring of the impurity levels, and for the detection of various possible fault conditions. Low-Z impurities, typically present in concentrations of 1%, are lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, and oxygen. Some of the common medium-Z impurities are metals such as iron, nickel, and copper, and high-Z impurities, such as tungsten, are present in smaller concentrations of 0.1% or less. Despite the relatively small concentration numbers, the aforementioned impurities might make a substantial contribution to radiated power, and also influence both plasma conditions and instruments. A detailed theoretical study of line radiation from impurities that covers a very broad spectral range from less than 1 Å to more than 1000 Å has been accomplished and the results were applied to the LLNL Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT) and the Sustained Spheromak Physics Experiment (SSPX) and to the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at Princeton. Though low- and medium-Z impurities were also studied, the main emphasis was made on the comprehensive theoretical study of radiation from tungsten using different state-of-the-art atomic structure codes such as Relativistic Many-Body Perturbation Theory (RMBPT). The important component of this research was a comparison of the results from the RMBPT code with other codes such as the Multiconfigurational Hartree–Fock developed by Cowan (COWAN code) and the Multiconfiguration Relativistic Hebrew University Lawrence Atomic Code (HULLAC code), and estimation of accuracy of calculations. We also have studied dielectronic recombination, an important recombination process for fusion plasma, for variety of highly and low charged tungsten ions using COWAN and HULLAC codes. Accurate DR rate coefficients are needed for describing the ionization balance of plasmas, which in turn determines the lines contributing to the spectral emission and the radiative power loss. In particular, we have calculated relativistic atomic data and corresponding dielectronic satellite spectra of highly ionized W ions, such as, for example, Li-like W (with the shortest wavelength of x-ray radiation of about 0.2 Å) that might exist in ITER core plasmas at very high temperatures of 30-40 keV. In addition, we have completed relativistic calculations of low ionized W ions from Lu-like (W3+) to Er-like (W6+) and for Sm-like(W12+) and Pm-like (W13+) that cover a spectral range from few hundred to thousand Å and are more relevant to the edge plasma diagnostics in tokamak.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Whitepaper prepared for DOE Workshop on Integrated Simulations for Magnetic Fusion Energy Sciences: Topic E: Beyond interpretive simulations

Predictive simulations of magnetic confinement fusion and burning plasmas will require the quantification of all uncertainties and errors relating to the simulation capabilities. These include: discretization error (temporal and spatial); incomplete convergence error (nonlinear, linear, etc.); uncertainties in input data (initial conditions, boundary conditions, coefficients, thermo-physical properties, source terms, etc.); and uncertainties in the component models (the specific form and parameter values).13 Typically, there is a focus on model parameter uncertainties but uncertainties about which model to use and about the bias or discrepancy of a particular model (sometimes called model form error) often dominate parameter uncertainty. This whitepaper addresses the challenges of performing uncertainty quantification (UQ) for expensive computational models.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Development and Application of Predictive Tools for MHD Stability Limits in Tokamaks

This is a project to develop and apply analytic and computational tools to answer physics questions relevant to the onset of non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities in toroidal magnetic confinement plasmas. The focused goal of the research is to develop predictive tools for these instabilities, including an inner layer solution algorithm, a resistive wall with control coils, and energetic particle effects. The production phase compares studies of instabilities in such systems using analytic techniques, PEST- III and NIMROD. Two important physics puzzles are targeted as guiding thrusts for the analyses. The first is to form an accurate description of the physics determining whether the resistive wall mode or a tearing mode will appear first as β is increased at low rotation and low error fields in DIII-D. The second is to understand the physical mechanism behind recent NIMROD results indicating strong damping and stabilization from energetic particle effects on linear resistive modes. The work seeks to develop a highly relevant predictive tool for ITER, advance the theoretical description of this physics in general, and analyze these instabilities in experiments such as ASDEX Upgrade, DIII-D, JET, JT-60U and NTSX. The awardee on this grant is the University of Tulsa. The research efforts are supervised principally by Dr. Brennan. Support is included for two graduate students, and a strong collaboration with Dr. John M. Finn of LANL. The work includes several ongoing collaborations with General Atomics, PPPL, and the NIMROD team, among others.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamics Modeling

This researcher participated in the DOE-funded Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamics Modeling (CEMM), a multi-institutional collaboration led by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory with Dr. Stephen Jardin as the overall Principal Investigator. This project developed advanced simulation tools to study the non-linear macroscopic dynamics of magnetically confined plasmas. The collaborative effort focused on the development of two large numerical simulation codes, M3D-C1 and NIMROD, and their application to a wide variety of problems. Dr. Ramos was responsible for theoretical aspects of the project, deriving consistent sets of model equations applicable to weakly collisional plasmas and devising test problems for verification of the numerical codes. This activity was funded for twelve years.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Theoretical Studies of Alfven Waves and Energetic Particle Physics in Fusion Plasmas

This report summarizes major theoretical findings in the linear as well as nonlinear physics of Alfvén waves and energetic particles in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. On the linear physics, a variational formulation, based on the separation of singular and regular spatial scales, for drift-Alfvén instabilities excited by energetic particles is established. This variational formulation is then applied to derive the general fishbone-like dispersion relations corresponding to the various Alfvén eigenmodes and energetic-particle modes. It is further employed to explore in depth the low-frequency Alfvén eigenmodes and demonstrate the non-perturbative nature of the energetic particles. On the nonlinear physics, new novel findings are obtained on both the nonlinear wave-wave interactions and nonlinear wave-energetic particle interactions. It is demonstrated that both the energetic particles and the fine radial mode structures could qualitatively affect the nonlinear evolution of Alfvén eigenmodes. Meanwhile, a theoretical approach based on the Dyson equation is developed to treat self-consistently the nonlinear interactions between Alfvén waves and energetic particles, and is then applied to explain simulation results of energetic-particle modes. Relevant list of journal publications on the above findings is also included.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

FY 2016 Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) Theory and Simulation Performance Target

Annual target: Predicting the magnitude and scaling of the divertor heat load width in magnetically confined burning plasmas is a high priority for the fusion program and ITER. One of the key unresolved physics issues is what sets the heat flux width at the entrance to the divertor region. Perform massively parallel simulations using 3D edge kinetic and fluid codes to determine the parameter dependence of the heat load width at the divertor entrance and compute the divertor plate heat flux applicable to moderate particle recycling conditions. Comparisons will be made with data from DIII-D, NSTX-U, and C-Mod.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Functional Plasma-Sprayed Ceramic Coatings for Use in Fusion Energy Systems

There is growing demand for new, cleaner ways to supply the rapidly growing global energy demand, as concerns grow over climate change and declining supplies of fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion, the phenomenon in which atomic nuclei collide together and release massive quantities of energy, is one of the most promising options for generating large amounts of carbon-free energy in the future.1 To initiate a common nuclear fusion reaction of hydrogen isotopes – deuterium and tritium, a hot plasma state is needed at incredibly high temperatures approaching 100 million degrees centigrade. One practical way to achieve these conditions is to use magnetic confinement of the plasma in a toroidal nuclear reactor known as a tokamak (Figure 1). A commercial fusion power station will then harvest the energy by converting the heat provided by the fusion chain reaction into steam to power gas turbines, and generate electricity on to the grid, while the excess neutrons also produced in the process is captured by a blanket made of dense material surrounding the tokomak.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Final Results from the Texas Helimak

The Helimak is a model device for studying the boundary region of a fusion magnetically-confined plasma. The characteristics of this region have been thoroughly explored.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Collaborative Research: Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Plasma Physics of Antihydrogen Generation and Trapping. Final Technical Report

The accomplishments at UNT that resulted from the DOE award are associated with the development of new knowledge reported in scientific publications. The new knowledge represents an improved understanding of various phenomena and scientific innovations, which include the following: artificially structured boundary for producing a spatially, periodic field; space-charge based plasma confinement; magnetic plasma expulsion; magnetobound positronium and protonium; quasibound antihydrogen; and, aperture-based antihydrogen gravity experiment. Other accomplishments at UNT that resulted from the DOE award are associated with research training provided to UNT students. All of the people who worked on the project at UNT were students, except for the UNT PI and one other UNT faculty member. The project has provided training opportunities for students who enrolled in courses such as Senior Thesis, Master’s Thesis, and Doctoral Dissertation. Such courses can apply towards a degree. The project has provided financial support for students who served as research assistants. The project has also provided opportunities for research to members of underrepresented groups. The work carried out by students as part of the research training they received was supervised by the PI to assure professional quality, and the team reported the research results in peer-reviewed journals and at technical conferences.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Proposal for a Fusion Prototype Neutron Source at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center

This study evaluates a target station at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center dedicated to the mission of irradiating structural materials in an environment that is nearly prototypic of the radiation environment experienced by the first wall of a magnetically-confined fusion reactor burning D-T fuel. Such a station could be located in the existing Area A experimental hall and be driven by an 800-MeV, 1-MW proton beam delivered by the LANSCE accelerator. A neutronics assessment of a target concept shows it satisfies all of the key parameter guidelines stated in the Summary Report on the Fusion Prototypic Neutron Source Workshop.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Interactions Between Microturbulence and Magnetohydrodynamic Instabilities in Magnetized Plasmas (Final Technical Report)

The overall goal of this project was to develop a better understanding between small-scale microturbulence and large-scale magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities, particularly magnetic islands and tearing modes, in fusion relevant magnetically confined plasmas. This project advanced understanding through numerical simulations of different model equations. Questions addressed included how the magnitudes, spatial structures, and scalings of turbulent forcings and drags impact island dynamics, as well as what the "region of influence" of a tearing mode on the turbulence dynamics. A key finding of the project is that the microturbulence (and associated transport) exhibits spatial asymmetries for sufficiently large islands. The results have improved our fundamental understanding of plasma dynamics, motivated new experimental investigations, and will help inform future fusion predictive modeling efforts.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

FY2018 Fusion Theory and Simulation Milestone on Plasma Materials Interaction (PMI) (Final Report)

The interaction of the boundary plasma with the material surfaces in magnetically confined plasmas is among the most critical problems in fusion energy science. In FY2018, perform high performance computing simulations with coupled boundary plasma physics and materials surface models to predict the fuel recycling and tritium retention of the ITER divertor for D-T burning plasma conditions, accounting for erosion, re-deposition and impurity transport in the plasma boundary, and an initial evaluation of the influence of material deposition on the recycling and retention.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗