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At least 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Neutral beams for the burning plasma era: Simulations and modeling of deuterium ion beams for plasma heating (CRADA Final Report)

Together with Realta Fusion, we set up several simulation scenarios and ran simulations using the WarpX code which is developed by LBNL and especially by members of the LBNL team. We investigated beam transport and beam neutralization and ran optimization and benchmark simulations. To achieve this, several new features were added to the warpX code. These code additions will also be beneficial to other users of warpX including several fusion companies and researchers at National Laboratories. Furthermore, we supported Realta Fusion in setting up their own instances of WarpX. We presented our results at the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics meeting and are in the process of writing a publication that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal to share our results with the broader community.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Advanced Closures for Nonlinear Fluid Simulations of Plasmas (Final Report)

Advanced Closures for Nonlinear Fluid Simulations of Plasmas E. Held, Utah State University (Principal Investigator) J.-Y. Ji, Utah State University (Co-Investigator) Utah State University (USU) continued to develop and apply closures for hybrid fluid/kinetic simulations of magnetized fusion plasmas. The closures developed by USU's fusion theory and computation group use the drift ordering and are referred to as "continuum" and "general moment" approaches. They differ in their representation for the distribution functions which probabilistically describe the density of particles in 5 dimensional phase space. The two chosen velocity variables, needed in studies of kinetic physics for magnetized plasmas, are the speed and the component of a particle's velocity along the magnetic field. In magnetized plasmas, the charged particle trajectories are tied closely to the magnetic field lines. Both approaches account for binary interactions between particles using the Coulomb collision operator. Theoretical and computational development along both lines provided avenues for verification between the two approaches. This funding allowed USU to further develop physically accurate and numerically efficient models that advance our understanding of kinetic physics in experiments like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The ITER device will likely prove the physical practicality of thermonuclear fusion by producing 500 megawatts of clean, abundant fusion power. This work helped to realize this goal by advancing our simulation capability using hybrid fluid/kinetic models.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Data-driven linear time advance operators for the acceleration of plasma physics simulation

In this study, we demonstrate the application of data-driven linear operator construction for time advance with a goal of accelerating plasma physics simulation. We apply dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) to data produced by the nonlinear SOLPS-ITER (Scrape-off Layer Plasma Simulator - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) plasma boundary code suite in order to estimate a series of linear operators and monitor their predictive accuracy via online error analysis. We find that this approach defines when these dynamics can be represented by a sequence of approximate linear operators and is essential for providing consistent projections when compared to an unconstrained application. For linear diffusion and advection–diffusion fluid test problems, we construct and apply operators within explicit and implicit time advance schemes, demonstrating that stability can be robustly guaranteed in each case. We further investigate the use of the linear time advance operators within several integration methods including forward Euler, backward Euler, and the matrix exponential. The application of this method to simulation data from SOLPS-ITER, with varying levels of Markov chain Monte Carlo numerical noise, shows that constrained DMD operators yield a capability to identify, extract, and integrate a (slow) subset of the present timescales. Example applications show that for projected speedup factors of [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text], a mean relative error of 3%, 5%, and 8% and maximum relative error less than 20% are achievable, which appears acceptable for typical SOLPS-ITER steady-state simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Speeding up simulations by slowing down particles: Speed-limited particle-in-cell simulation

Based on the particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulation method, the speed-limited PIC (SLPIC) method delivers faster kinetic plasma simulation in cases where the particle distributions evolve slowly compared with the maximum stable PIC timestep. SLPIC thus offers more feasible, fully kinetic simulation in regimes that historically have required fluid approaches, such as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), two-fluid, or Boltzmann electron treatments. In particular, SLPIC allows an explicit time advance with steps much larger than the inverse plasma frequency, avoiding the instability explicit PIC faces with large timesteps. SLPIC avoids this instability by slowing down fast particles (e.g., electrons) in a way that is rigorously underpinned by an approximate Vlasov equation; unlike MHD, two-fluid, and Boltzmann electron approaches, SLPIC does not fundamentally neglect any first-principles plasma physics, although the choices of the grid cell size, timestep, and number of macroparticles per cell naturally limit the physical phenomena that can be accurately represented. SLPIC can be implemented with minor modifications of a standard PIC code and does not require an implicit time advance. It enables large timesteps in first-principles kinetic plasma simulation of appropriately slow phenomena, and it can handle many of the same complications as PIC, such as boundary conditions and collisions. Finally, in an argon plasma sheath test problem, a SLPIC simulation achieved a speed-up of a factor of 160 over the corresponding PIC simulation, without loss of accuracy.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Accuracy and convergence of coupled finite-volume/Monte Carlo codes for plasma edge simulations of nuclear fusion reactors

The plasma and neutral transport in the plasma edge of a nuclear fusion reactor is usually simulated using coupled finite volume (FV)/Monte Carlo (MC) codes. However, under conditions of future reactors like ITER and DEMO, convergence issues become apparent. This paper examines the convergence behaviour and the numerical error contributions with a simplified FV/MC model for three coupling techniques: Correlated Sampling, Random Noise and Robbins Monro. Also, practical procedures to estimate the errors in complex codes are proposed. Moreover, first results with more complex models show that an order of magnitude speedup can be achieved without any loss in accuracy by making use of averaging in the Random Noise coupling technique.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

SciDAC - Center for Plasma Edge Simulation - Project Summary

Final Technical Report: Center for Plasma Edge Simulation (CPES) Principal Investigator: Scott Parker, University of Colorado, Boulder Description/Abstract First-principle simulations of edge pedestal micro-turbulence are performed with the global gyrokinetic turbulence code GEM for both low and high confinement tokamak plasmas. The high confinement plasmas show a larger growth rate, but nonlinearly a lower particle and heat flux. Numerical profiles are obtained from the XGC0 neoclassical code. XGC0/GEM code coupling is implemented under the EFFIS (“End-to-end Framework for Fusion Integrated Simulation”) framework. Investigations are underway to clearly identify the micro-instabilities in the edge pedestal using global and flux-tube gyrokinetic simulation with realistic experimental high confinement profiles. We use both experimental profiles and those obtained using the EFFIS XGC0/GEM coupled code framework. We find there are three types of instabilities at the edge: a low-n, high frequency electron mode, a high-n, low frequency ion mode, and possibly an ion mode like kinetic ballooning mode (KBM). Investigations are under way for the effects of the radial electric field. Finally, we have been investigating how plasmas dominated by ion-temperature gradient (ITG) driven turbulence, how cold Deuterium and Tritium ions near the edge will naturally pinch radially inward towards the core. We call this mechanism “natural fueling.” It is due to the quasi-neutral heat flux dominated nature of the turbulence and still applies when trapped and passing kinetic electron effects are included. To understand this mechanism, examine the situation where the electrons are adiabatic, and there is an ion heat flux. In such a case, lower energy particles move inward and higher energy particles move outward. If a trace amount of cold particles are added, they will move inward.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Plasma-Neutrals Simulation of Linear Configurations for PSI

Coupled fluid plasma and kinetic Monte Carlo neutrals simulations in a linear configuration are reported. The configuration mimics the tokamak divertor plasma channel contacting a target surface with nearby wall. We calculate the parameters of the source plasmas, 3-5m from the target, required to produce high recycling target plasmas recently simulated for ITER. It is shown that the source plasma needs to deliver heat fluxes of 10-20MW/m2, ion fluxes of 1023/m2/s, densities of 2-6x1019/m3, and electron and ion temperatures of 15-30eV over a plasma radius of 5-6cm. The neutral H and H2 fluxes to the vessel wall are calculated to be comparable to those measured in the divertor regions of today s tokamaks. These results identify some design features for a prospective plasma material test station and the research required for this plasma source.

Peng, Yueng Kay Martin↗
DOE OSTI2012

Center for Plasma Edge Simulation (CPES). Final Technical Report

The Center for Plasma Edge Simulation (CPES) project was a multi-institutional research effort funded jointly by the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (OASCR) and the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) within the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The effort was led by our Principal Investigator, CS Chang, at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences at New York University. The Center included participants from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Lehigh University, Rutgers University, University of Colorado, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California at Davis, University of California at Irvine, North Carolina State University, and Georgia Institute of Technology. This report concerns the work performed by Dr. Julian C. Cummings, who was the institutional Principal Investigator for the CPES project at Caltech.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Comparisons between tokamak fueling of gas puffing and supersonic molecular beam injection in 2D simulations

Plasma fueling with high efficiency and deep injection is very important to enable fusion power performance requirements. It is a powerful and efficient way to study neutral transport dynamics and find methods of improving the fueling performance by doing large scale simulations. Two basic fueling methods, gas puffing (GP) and supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI), are simulated and compared in realistic divertor geometry of the HL-2A tokamak with a newly developed module, named trans-neut, within the framework of BOUT++ boundary plasma turbulence code [Z. H. Wang et al., Nucl. Fusion 54, 043019 (2014)]. The physical model includes plasma density, heat and momentum transport equations along with neutral density, and momentum transport equations. Transport dynamics and profile evolutions of both plasma and neutrals are simulated and compared between GP and SMBI in both poloidal and radial directions, which are quite different from one and the other. It finds that the neutrals can penetrate about four centimeters inside the last closed (magnetic) flux surface during SMBI, while they are all deposited outside of the LCF during GP. It is the radial convection and larger inflowing flux which lead to the deeper penetration depth of SMBI and higher fueling efficiency compared to GP.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Gyrokinetic continuum simulations of plasma turbulence in the Texas Helimak

The first gyrokinetic simulations of plasma turbulence in the Texas Helimak device, a simple magnetized torus, are presented. Here, the device has features similar to the scrape-off layer region of tokamaks, such as bad-curvature-driven instabilities and sheath boundary conditions on the end plates, which are included in these simulations. Comparisons between simulations and measurements from the experiment show not only similarities, including equilibrium profiles and fluctuation amplitudes that approach experimental values, but also some important quantitative differences. Both experimental and simulation results exhibit turbulence statistics that are characteristic of blob transport.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Consistent coupling algorithms for coupled core-edge simulations of plasma turbulence

Two schemes for coupling gyrokinetic simulations of microturbulence in tokamaks are proposed. The first scheme is based on an additive Schwarz domain decomposition. In this work, we show that, because the goal of turbulence is long-time averages of the dynamics rather than temporal accuracy, the iteration to self-consistency across domains, which is typically required by Schwarz schemes, can be avoided, thereby accelerating the computation. Second, we propose a coupling scheme that relies entirely on the addition of source terms, leaving the boundary conditions arbitrary. The practical motivations for such a scheme are discussed, and forms of the source terms that ensure consistency and stability are derived. The schemes are tested on a nonlinear, one-dimensional model problem, and the first scheme is further tested on the Hasegawa–Wakatani model.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Final technical report for DE-SC0006957 Center for Simulation of Plasma Microturbulence

This final report for the CSPM (Center for Simulation of Plasma Microturbulence) project documents contributions from University of California, San Diego researchers over the period of 9/1/2011 – 8/31/2018. The primary focus of these efforts was on performing validation studies using the GYRO code, addressing topics such as finite-beta effects on H-mode transport and turbulence physics mechanisms in electron transport dominated regimes. Key results and products of the work include a formalized system of turbulent transport validation metrics and the first multiscale gyrokinetic simulations of coupled ion and electron scale turbulence, for physically realistic and experimentally measured parameters.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Rare event molecular dynamics simulations of plasma induced surface ablation

The interaction of thermal Ar plasma particles with Si and W surfaces is modeled using classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. At plasma energies above the threshold for ablation, the ablation yield can be calculated directly from MD. For plasma energies below threshold, the ablation yield becomes exponentially low, and direct MD simulations are inefficient. Instead, we propose an integration method where the yield is calculated as a function of the Ar incident kinetic energy. Subsequent integration with a Boltzmann distribution at the temperature of interest gives the thermal ablation yield. At low plasma temperatures, the ablation yield follows an Arrhenius form in which the activation energy is shown to be the threshold energy for ablation. Interestingly, equilibrium material properties, including the surface and bulk cohesive energy, are not good predictors of the threshold energy for ablation. The surface vacancy formation energy is better, but is still not a quantitative predictor. An analysis of the trajectories near threshold shows that ablation occurs by different mechanisms on different material surfaces, and both the mechanism and the binding of surface atoms determine the threshold energy.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2012

Charging effect simulation model used in simulations of plasma etching of silicon

Understanding the consequences of local surface charging on the evolving etching profile is a critical challenge in high density plasma etching. Deflection of the positively charged ions in locally varying electric fields can cause profile defects such as notching, bowing, and microtrenching. We have developed a numerical simulation model capturing the influence of the charging effect over the entire course of the etching process. The model is fully integrated into ViPER (Virtual Plasma Etch Reactor)-a full featured plasma processing simulation software developed at Ilmenau University of Technology. As a consequence, we show that local surface charge concurrently evolves with the feature profile to affect the final shape of the etched feature. Using gas chopping (sometimes called time-multiplexed) etch process for experimental validation of the simulation, we show that the model provides excellent fits to the experimental data and both, bowing and notching effects are captured-as long as the evolving profile and surface charge are simultaneously simulated. In addition, this new model explains that surface scallops, characteristic of gas chopping technique, are eroded and often absent in the final feature profile due to surface charging. The model is general and can be applied across many etching chemistries.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

UCLA Final Technical Report for the "Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation”.

The UCLA Plasma Simulation Group is a major partner of the “Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation”. This is the final technical report. We include an overall summary, a list of publications, progress for the most recent year, and individual progress reports for each year. We have made tremendous progress during the three years. SciDAC funds have contributed to the development of a large number of skeleton codes that illustrate how to write PIC codes with a hierarchy of parallelism. These codes cover 2D and 3D as well as electrostatic solvers (which are used in beam dynamics codes and quasi-static codes) and electromagnetic solvers (which are used in plasma based accelerator codes). We also used these ideas to develop a GPU enabled version of OSIRIS. SciDAC funds were also contributed to the development of strategies to eliminate the Numerical Cerenkov Instability (NCI) which is an issue when carrying laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) simulations in a boosted frame and when quantifying the emittance and energy spread of self-injected electron beams. This work included the development of a new code called UPIC-EMMA which is an FFT based electromagnetic PIC code and to new hybrid algorithms in OSIRIS. A new hybrid (PIC in r-z and gridless in φ) algorithm was implemented into OSIRIS. In this algorithm the fields and current are expanded into azimuthal harmonics and the complex amplitude for each harmonic is calculated separately. The contributions from each harmonic are summed and then used to push the particles. This algorithm permits modeling plasma based acceleration with some 3D effects but with the computational load of an 2D r-z PIC code. We developed a rigorously charge conserving current deposit for this algorithm. Very recently, we made progress in combining the speed up from the quasi-3D algorithm with that from the Lorentz boosted frame. SciDAC funds also contributed to the improvement and speed up of the quasi-static PIC code QuickPIC. We have also used our suite of PIC codes to make scientific discovery. Highlights include supporting FACET experiments which achieved the milestones of showing high beam loading and energy transfer efficiency from a drive electron beam to a witness electron beam and the discovery of a self-loading regime a for high gradient acceleration of a positron beam. Both of these experimental milestones were published in Nature together with supporting QuickPIC simulation results. Simulation results from QuickPIC were used on the cover of Nature in one case. We are also making progress on using highly resolved QuickPIC simulations to show that ion motion may not lead to catastrophic emittance growth for tightly focused electron bunches loaded into nonlinear wakefields. This could mean that fully self-consistent beam loading scenarios are possible. This work remains in progress. OSIRIS simulations were used to discover how 200 MeV electron rings are formed in LWFA experiments, on how to generate electrons that have a series of bunches on nanometer scale, and how to transport electron beams from (into) plasma sections into (from) conventional beam optic sections.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation

The UCLA Plasma Simulation Group is a major partner of the "Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation. This is the final technical report. We include an overall summary, a list of publications and individual progress reports for each years. During the past five years we have made tremendous progress in enhancing the capabilities of OSIRIS and QuickPIC, in developing new algorithms and data structures for PIC codes to run on GPUS and many future core architectures, and in using these codes to model experiments and in making new scientific discoveries. Here we summarize some highlights for which SciDAC was a major contributor.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Simulation of plasma density evolution in the T-10 tokamak

Analysis of the experimental profiles of the plasma density and pressure in the T-10 tokamak shows that in the plasma core they are close to the corresponding canonical profiles. This allows one to construct an expression for the particle flux in terms of the canonical profile model. T-10 experiments performed with ohmic discharges have revealed transitions from improved to low particle confinement, similar to the effect of the density pump-out from the central part of the plasma upon switching-on of the electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH). It is shown that such a change in the particle confinement is associated with the deviation of the radial pressure profile from the canonical one. A nonlinear model of particle transport in discharges with density variations that allows for the transition effects is proposed. The plasma density evolution is numerically simulated for a number of ohmic and ECRH T-10 discharges.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Total fluid pressure imbalance in the scrape-off layer of tokamak plasmas

Simulations using the fully kinetic neoclassical code XGCa (X-point included guiding-center axisymmetric) were undertaken to explore the impact of kinetic effects on scrape-off layer (SOL) physics in DIII-D H-mode plasmas. XGCa is a total-f, gyrokinetic code which self-consistently calculates the axisymmetric electrostatic potential and plasma dynamics, and includes modules for Monte Carlo neutral transport. Previously presented XGCa results showed several noteworthy features, including large variations of ion density and pressure along field lines in the SOL, experimentally relevant levels of SOL parallel ion flow (Mach number similar to 0.5), skewed ion distributions near the sheath entrance leading to subsonic flow there, and elevated sheath potentials (Churchill 2016 Nucl. Mater. Energy 1-6). In this paper, we explore in detail the question of pressure balance in the SOL, as it was observed in the simulation that there was a large deviation from a simple total pressure balance (the sum of ion and electron static pressure plus ion inertia). It will be shown that both the contributions from the ion viscosity (driven by ion temperature anisotropy) and neutral source terms can be substantial, and should be retained in the parallel momentum equation in the SOL, but still falls short of accounting for the observed fluid pressure imbalance in the XGCa simulation results.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗