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 1,009 records · Page 56
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Electron cyclotron emission detection of neoclassical tearing modes for control for ITER

Successful operation of ITER requires control of magnetic instabilities including neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) that can degrade confinement and lead to disruption. Low latency detection by electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostics has been demonstrated in a few current experiments. Using a synthetic diagnostic, we demonstrate low latency NTM detection for ITER with plasmas described by ITER IMAS database scenarios and with realistic limitations imposed on the instrumentation by these high temperature scenarios. 2/1 NTMs are detected 430 ms after magnetic island seeding and before island locking. The radiometer configuration was optimized using simulation, and the smallest detectable island size was explored. Island sizes of ∼3 cm are detectable at the 2/1 surface. The simulated signals incorporate recent physics models for island growth and rotation, which show early locking and continued island growth after locking and before disruption. This work determines limits for ITER ECE spatial resolution imposed by relativistic broadening of channels, which informs hardware design. Real-time detection is demonstrated in hardware that is required by ITER, including on an NI PXI-7853R FPGA system. Development of a synthetic diagnostic and details of the hardware will be discussed.

Cyclotron radiation↗
DOE OSTI2019

Delayed Gamma Signature Accounting for Field Line Transport of Debris Ions after a Nuclear Explosion

Delayed gammas (DGs) are produced by the decay of radioactive fission fragments after a nuclear explosion. Currently, the time and energy profile of the delayed gamma signal is propagated in DIORAMA to the GEO satellite sensors by assuming a point source at the burst location for the production of the delayed gammas. However, in reality the production of delayed gammas is spread over some spatial extent. First, the debris ions are confined within an expanding region by the magnetic field and/or surrounding plasma. This expanding confinement bubble eventually collapses, at which point the debris ions can be trapped on magnetic field lines and transported away from the original burst location. In this work the effects of debris ion transport on the associated time profile of delayed gammas at a GEO satellite is presented. The first step was the development of the Delayed Gamma Source Model (DGSM), which is based on the analytical Electron Source Model (ESM) code developed at LANL that models the spatial distribution of energetic electrons produced after a high-altitude nuclear explosion (HANE) for use as a source term in LANL artificial belt diffusion code. This model creates a spatial grid in latitude, longitude, and altitude of the distribution of radioactive debris ions. The output of this code is combined with a separate analysis code also described, which produces the DG time profile signature at a GEO sensor faceplate when accounting for the spatial spread of delayed gamma production during field line transport. Some simple case studies are presented to show how the DG signature at GEO calculated with this higher-fidelity model and a simple point-source model, as is currently assumed in DIORAMA, compare.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Resonant-magnetic-perturbation-induced plasma transport in H-mode pedestals

Plasma toroidal rotation reduces reconnection of externally applied resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) fields {delta}B on rational (q = m/n) magnetic flux surfaces. Hence, it causes radial perturbations {delta}B{sub {rho}m/n} to be small there, and thus inhibits magnetic island formation and stochasticity in the edge of high (H-) mode confinement tokamak plasmas. However, electron collisional damping combined with the spatial magnetic flutter {delta}B{sub {rho}m/n} induced by RMPs in the vicinity of rational surfaces causes a radial electron heat diffusivity in which {chi}{sub e Parallel-To }{sup eff}{approx}(v{sub Te}{sup 2}/{nu}{sub e})/(1+x{sup 2}/{delta}{sub Parallel-To }{sup 2}) is an effective parallel electron thermal diffusivity. These effects are reduced by magnetic shear effects at a distance x from rational surfaces for |x|>{delta}{sub Parallel-To} but amplified for {delta}B-caret{sub {rho}m/n}(x)>{delta}B-caret{sub {rho}m/n}(0). A kinetic, toroidal model of these RMP-flutter-induced plasma transport effects is developed and compared to a previously developed cylindrical model. The RMP-induced increases in plasma transport can be large enough to reduce plasma gradients in H-mode pedestals. Thus, they may contribute to suppressing edge localized modes in tokamak plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Overview of the JET results

Since the installation of an ITER-like wall, the JET programme has focused on the consolidation of ITER design choices and the preparation for ITER operation, with a specific emphasis given to the bulk tungsten melt experiment, which has been crucial for the final decision on the material choice for the day-one tungsten divertor in ITER. Integrated scenarios have been progressed with the re-establishment of long-pulse, high-confinement H-modes by optimizing the magnetic configuration and the use of ICRH to avoid tungsten impurity accumulation. Stationary discharges with detached divertor conditions and small edge localized modes have been demonstrated by nitrogen seeding. The differences in confinement and pedestal behaviour before and after the ITER-like wall installation have been better characterized towards the development of high fusion yield scenarios in DT. Post-mortem analyses of the plasma-facing components have confirmed the previously reported low fuel retention obtained by gas balance and shown that the pattern of deposition within the divertor has changed significantly with respect to the JET carbon wall campaigns due to the absence of thermally activated chemical erosion of beryllium in contrast to carbon. Lastly, transport to remote areas is almost absent and two orders of magnitude less material is found in the divertor.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Discontinuous properties of current-induced magnetic domain wall depinning

The current-induced motion of magnetic domain walls (DWs) confined to nanostructures is of great interest for fundamental studies as well as for technological applications in spintronic devices. Here, we present magnetic images showing the depinning properties of pulse-current-driven domain walls in well-shaped Permalloy nanowires obtained using photoemission electron microscopy combined with x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. In the vicinity of the threshold current density (Jth 5 4.2 3 1011 A.m22 ) for the DW motion, discontinuous DW depinning and motion have been observed as a sequence of ‘‘Barkhausen jumps’’. A one-dimensional analytical model with a piecewise parabolic pinning potential has been introduced to reproduce the DW hopping between two nearest neighbour sites, which reveals the dynamical nature of the current-driven DW motion in the depinning regime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Magnetic fields with general omnigenity

Omnigenity is a desirable property of toroidal magnetic fields that ensures confinement of trapped particles. Confining charged particles is a basic requirement for any fusion power plant design, but it can be difficult to satisfy with the non-axisymmetric magnetic fields used by the stellarator approach. Every ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium previously found to approximate omnigenity has been either axisymmetric, quasi-symmetric or has poloidally closed contours of magnetic field strength $B$ . However, general omnigenous equilibria are a much larger design space than these subsets. A new model is presented and employed in the DESC stellarator optimization suite to represent and discover the full parameter space of omnigenous equilibria. Although exact omnigenity aside from quasi-symmetry is impossible, these results reveal that excellent particle confinement can be achieved in practice. Examples far from quasi-symmetry with poloidally, helically and toroidally closed $B$ contours are attained with DESC and shown to have low neoclassical collisional transport and fast particle losses.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Landau electron in a rotating environment: A general factorization of time evolution

For the Landau problem with a rotating magnetic field and a confining potential in the (changing) direction of the field, we derive a general factorization of the time evolution operator that includes the adiabatic factorization as a special case. The confining potential is assumed to be of a general form and it can correspond to nonlinear Heisenberg equations of motion. The rotation operator associated with the solid angle Berry phase is used to transform the problem to a rotating reference frame. In the rotating reference frame, we derive a natural factorization of the time evolution operator by recognizing the crucial role played by a gauge transformation. The major complexity of the problem arises from the coupling between motion in the direction of the magnetic field and motion perpendicular to the field. In the factorization, this complexity is consolidated into a single operator which approaches the identity operator when the potential confines the particle sufficiently close to a rotating plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. The structure of this operator is clarified by deriving an expression for its generating Hamiltonian. The adiabatic limit and non-adiabatic effects follow as consequences of the general factorization which are clarified using the magnetic translation concept.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Progress in the development of an H{sup −} ion source for cyclotrons

A multi-cusp DC H{sup −} ion source has been developed for cyclotrons in medical use. Beam optics of the H{sup −} ion beam is studied using a 2D beam trajectory code. The simulation results are compared with the experimental results obtained in the Mark I source, which has produced up to 16 mA H{sup −} ion beams. The optimum extraction voltages show good agreement between the calculation and the experimental results. A new ion source, Mark II source, is designed to achieve the next goal of producing an H{sup −} beam of 20 mA. The magnetic field configurations and the plasma electrode design are optimized for Cs-seeded operation. Primary electron trajectory simulation shows that primary electrons are confined well and the magnetic filter prevents the primary electrons from entering into the extraction region.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Preparation of magnetized nanodusty plasmas in a radio frequency-driven parallel-plate reactor

Nanodust is produced in an rf-driven push-pull parallel-plate reactor using argon with an acetylene admixture at 5–30 Pa. A scheme for the preparation of nanodust clouds with particle radii up to 400 nm for investigations in magnetized plasmas is proposed. The confinement that keeps the nanodust of different radii inside a moderately magnetized discharge (B ≤ 500 mT) is investigated by a comparison of 2d-Langmuir probe measurements in the dust-free plasma without and with a magnetic field and by the analysis of scattered light of nanodust clouds. It is shown that the dust cloud changes its shape when the dust density changes. This results in a reversed α-γ{sup ′} transition from a dense dust cloud with a central disk-like void to a dilute dust cloud with a toroidal void. When the dust density is further reduced, filaments are observed in the central part of the cloud, which were absent in the high-density phase. It is concluded that the dense nanodust cloud is able to suppress plasma filamentation in magnetized plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Revealing giant internal magnetic fields due to spin fluctuations in magnetically doped colloidal nanocrystals

Strong quantum confinement in semiconductors can compress the wavefunctions of band electrons and holes to nanometre-scale volumes, significantly enhancing interactions between themselves and individual dopants. In magnetically doped semiconductors, where paramagnetic dopants (such as Mn 2+ , Co 2+ and so on) couple to band carriers via strong sp–d spin exchange, giant magneto-optical effects can therefore be realized in confined geometries using few or even single impurity spins. Importantly, however, thermodynamic spin fluctuations become increasingly relevant in this few-spin limit. In nanoscale volumes, the statistical √N fluctuations of N spins are expected to generate giant effective magnetic fields B eff , which should dramatically impact carrier spin dynamics, even in the absence of any applied field. In this paper, we directly and unambiguously reveal the large B eff that exist in Mn 2+ -doped CdSe colloidal nanocrystals using ultrafast optical spectroscopy. At zero applied magnetic field, extremely rapid (300–600 GHz) spin precession of photoinjected electrons is observed, indicating B eff ~ 15-30 T for electrons. Precession frequencies exceed 2 THz in applied magnetic fields. Finally, these signals arise from electron precession about the random fields due to statistically incomplete cancellation of the embedded Mn 2+ moments, thereby revealing the initial coherent dynamics of magnetic polaron formation, and highlighting the importance of magnetization fluctuations on carrier spin dynamics in nanomaterials.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Effects of q-profile structure on turbulence spreading: A fluctuation intensity transport analysis

This paper studies effects of q-profile structure on turbulence spreading. It reports results of numerical experiments using global gyrokinetic simulations. We examine propagation of turbulence, triggered by an identical linear instability in a source region, into an adjacent, linearly stable region with variable q-profile. The numerical experiments are designed so as to separate the physics of turbulence spreading from that of linear stability. The strength of turbulence spreading is measured by the penetration depth of turbulence. Dynamics of spreading are elucidated by fluctuation intensity balance analysis, using a model intensity evolution equation which retains nonlinear diffusion and damping, and linear growth. It is found that turbulence spreading is strongly affected by magnetic shear s, but is hardly altered by the safety factor q itself. There is an optimal range of modest magnetic shear which maximizes turbulence spreading. For high to modest shear values, the spreading is enhanced by the increase of the mode correlation length with decreasing magnetic shear. However, the efficiency of spreading drops for sufficiently low magnetic shear even though the mode correlation length is comparable to that for the case of optimal magnetic shear. The reduction of spreading is attributed to the increase in time required for the requisite nonlinear mode-mode interactions. The effect of increased interaction time dominates that of increased mode correlation length. Our findings of the reduction of spreading and the increase in interaction time at weak magnetic shear are consistent with the well-known benefit of weak or reversed magnetic shear for core confinement enhancement. Weak shear is shown to promote locality, as well as stability.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Magnetized ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability in three dimensions

Three-dimensional extended-magnetohydrodynamics simulations of the magnetized ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability are presented. Previous two-dimensional (2D) simulations claiming perturbation suppression by magnetic tension are shown to be misleading, as they do not include the most unstable dimension. For perturbation modes along the applied field direction, the magnetic field simultaneously reduces ablative stabilization and adds magnetic tension stabilization; the stabilizing term is found to dominate for applied fields > 5 T, with both effects increasing in importance at short wavelengths. Additionally, for modes perpendicular to the applied field, magnetic tension does not directly stabilize the perturbation but can result in moderately slower growth due to the perturbation appearing to be 2D (albeit in a different orientation to 2D inertial confinement fusion simulations). In cases where thermal ablative stabilization is dominant the applied field increases the peak bubble-spike height. Resistive diffusion is shown to be important for short wavelengths and long timescales, reducing the effectiveness of tension stabilization.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Inferring fuel areal density from secondary neutron yields in laser-driven magnetized liner inertial fusion

A technique to infer the areal density ρR of compressed deuterium (D) in cylindrical implosions from the ratio of secondary D–T (deuterium–tritium) neutrons to primary D–D neutrons is described and evaluated. For ρR to be proportional to the ratio of D–T to D–D yield, the increase in the D–T fusion cross section with collisional slowing of the tritium must be small, requiring where TkeV is the electron temperature in keV. The technique is applied to results from laser-driven magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) targets on OMEGA, where ρR is certainly less than 4 mg/cm 2 . OMEGA MagLIF targets do not achieve a sufficiently high, radially integrated, axial magnetic field BR to confine the tritium, as occurs in Z MagLIF targets, because they are ~10× smaller in radius. The inferred areal densities show that fuel convergence is reduced by preheating, by an applied axial magnetic field, and by increasing the initial fuel density, which are key features of the MagLIF scheme. The results are compared with 1-D and 2-D magnetohydrodynamic simulations for nominal laser and target parameters, which predict areal densities 2× to 3× higher than the measurements.

Davies, J. R.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Magnetic flux and heat losses by diffusive, advective, and Nernst effects in magnetized liner inertial fusion-like plasma

The magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) approach to inertial confinement fusion [Slutz et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010); Cuneo et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 40, 3222 (2012)] involves subsonic/isobaric compression and heating of a deuterium-tritium plasma with frozen-in magnetic flux by a heavy cylindrical liner. The losses of heat and magnetic flux from the plasma to the liner are thereby determined by plasma advection and gradient-driven transport processes, such as thermal conductivity, magnetic field diffusion, and thermomagnetic effects. Theoretical analysis based on obtaining exact self-similar solutions of the classical collisional Braginskii's plasma transport equations in one dimension demonstrates that the heat loss from the hot compressed magnetized plasma to the cold liner is dominated by transverse heat conduction and advection, and the corresponding loss of magnetic flux is dominated by advection and the Nernst effect. For a large electron Hall parameter (ω{sub e}τ{sub e}≫1), the effective diffusion coefficients determining the losses of heat and magnetic flux to the liner wall are both shown to decrease with ω{sub e}τ{sub e} as does the Bohm diffusion coefficient cT/(16eB), which is commonly associated with low collisionality and two-dimensional transport. We demonstrate how this family of exact solutions can be used for verification of codes that model the MagLIF plasma dynamics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Fine-tuning of canted magnetization in stepped Fe films through thickness variation, Au capping, and quantum confinement

Here, we present a joint experimental and theoretical study that demonstrates how to efficiently control a canted state of magnetization in Fe films grown on Ag(001) vicinal surface and precisely characterize it with the magneto-optical Kerr effect. It is shown that by employing different mechanisms to tune the magnetization tilting angle, any magnetization orientation within the plane perpendicular to the step edges can be achieved. In particular, increasing the Fe film thickness leads to continuous rotation of the magnetization easy axis toward the film surface and the sense of this rotation in uncovered films is opposite to that in films covered with Au. Another tuning mechanism is provided by oscillatory changes of the tilting angle at low temperatures due to formation of quantum well states in Fe films. The observed canting of magnetization is explained within a phenomenological model by an interplay of the shape anisotropy and two magnetocrystalline anisotropy terms, perpendicular and step-induced anisotropies, which results in an effective uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. The fitted thickness dependencies of the anisotropy constants accurately reproduce experimental variations of the tilting angle with both Fe and Au thicknesses as well as transient changes of the magnetization orientation in ultrathin Fe films upon submonolayer Au coverage, observed with spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Axial confinement of wire array Z-pinch precursor plasmas by a pulsed magnetic mirror field

A novel wire-array Z-pinch platform has been developed to study the effect of a pulsed magnetic mirror field on a collisional high energy density plasma. The mirror is driven in series with the Z-pinch target and, therefore, scales with driver current. Axial confinement is observed based on visible imaging and axial flow velocity measurements. The presence of axial compressing J xB force is determined indirectly based on Thomson scattering and interferometry measurements and corroborated by three-dimensional extended-MHD simulations. Compared to non-magnetized wire array Z-pinch, a modified pulsed mirror configuration is observed to increase precursor plasma thermal energy density by about 30%. If optimized, such a configuration could potentially improve magnetized liner inertial fusion performance by reducing axial plasma end loss.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Perovskite magnet with quantum mechanical glassiness

Magnetic materials of strongly correlated origin are at the forefront of research in the exploration of new quantum mechanical properties involving spin and charges. Quantum magnetic material with certain intrinsic functionalities, such as continuously fluctuating spins to the lowest accessible temperature - reminiscing a liquid pattern, is argued to form a new phase of matter. Envisaging a phenomenon where the continuously fluctuating spins are also randomly frozen in space, can diminish the distinction between the two opposite extremes of quantum and classical magnetism. Here, we report new evidence in this regard where the coexistence of quantum spin continuum with a spin glass order in Co-doped CaRuO3 perovskite is demonstrated. In experimental investigations of Co-doped CaRuO3 perovskite, we find that (a) a continuum spectrum in the energy-momentum space, due to the uncorrelated spin fluctuations, persists across the weak spin glass transition at T G ≃ 23 K and (b) the quantum fluctuation of magnetic moment is spatially confined to individual sites only, thereby making it an extremely local event. Thus, the fluctuating spins, at a given time, are also randomly frozen macroscopically. The experimental observations suggest the discovery of a new magnetic phase at the cross-road of classical and quantum physics in strongly correlated perovskite materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Sustained spheromaks with ideal n = 1 kink stability and pressure confinement

Increasing the helicity injector drive frequency up to 68.5 kHz on the Helicity Injected Torus-Steady Inductive (HIT-SI) experiment has produced spheromaks with current amplifications of 3.8, ideal n = 1 kink stability, improved toroidal symmetry and pressure confinement. Current centroid calculations from surface magnetic probes show an outward shift in the magnetic field at frequencies above 50 kHz. Grad-Shafranov equilibria indicate pressure confinement at higher injector operating frequencies. The minimum characteristic frequency needed to achieve this confining effect on HIT-SI plasmas is found to be approximately 30 kHz by analysis of the density fluctuations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗