Healing plasma current ramp-up by Nitrogen seeding in the full Tungsten environment of WEST

Achieving a successful plasma current ramp-up in a full Tungsten tokamak can be challenging due to the large core radiation (and resulting low core temperature) that can be faced with this heavy metallic impurity if its relative concentration is too high. Nitrogen injection during the plasma current ramp-up of WEST discharges greatly improves core temperature and Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic stability. Experimental measurements and integrated simulations with the RAPTOR code complemented with the Qualikiz Neural Network for computing turbulent transport allow a detailed understanding of the mechanisms at play. Increased edge radiation during this transient phase is shown to improve confinement properties, driving higher core temperature and better MHD stability. This also leads to increased operation margins with respect to Tungsten contamination.

Observation of a reduced-turbulence regime with boron powder injection in a stellarator

In state-of-the-art stellarators, turbulence is a major cause of the degradation of plasma confinement. To maximize confinement, which eventually determines the amount of nuclear fusion reactions, turbulent transport needs to be reduced. Here we report the observation of a confinement regime in a stellarator plasma that is characterized by increased confinement and reduced turbulent fluctuations. The transition to this regime is driven by the injection of submillimetric boron powder grains into the plasma. With the line-averaged electron density being kept constant, we observe a substantial increase of stored energy and electron and ion temperatures. At the same time, the amplitude of the plasma turbulent fluctuations is halved. While lower frequency fluctuations are damped, higher frequency modes in the range between 100 and 200 kHz are excited. We have observed this regime for different heating schemes, namely with both electron and ion cyclotron resonant radio frequencies and neutral beams, for both directions of the magnetic field and both hydrogen and deuterium plasmas.

Measurements of Turbulent Transport in a Square Channel with One Ribbed Wall

The velocity field of the fully developed turbulent flow in a one-sided ribbed square channel (rib-height-to-channel-height ratio of k/h = 0.0667, rib-pitch-to-rib-height ratio of p/k = 9) were measured at Reynolds numbers (based on the channel height h and the mean bulk velocity uB) of Reh = 50 000 and 100 000 by means of Laser-Doppler-Anemometry (LDA). Triple velocity correlations differed slightly between both Reynolds numbers when normalized by the bulk velocity and the channel height, similarly to the first- and second-order statistical moments of the velocity. Their near-wall behavior reflected the crucial role of turbulent transport near the rib crest and within the separated shear layer. Sweep events occurred with the elongated flow structures of the flapping shear layer and gained in importance towards the channel bottom wall, while strong ejection events near the rib leading and trailing edges coincided with flow structures bursting away from the wall. Despite the predominant occurrence of sweep events close to the ribbed wall within the inter-rib spacing, ejection events contributed with higher intensity to the Reynolds shear stress. Ejection and sweep events and their underlying transport phenomena contributing to the Reynolds shear stress were almost Reynolds number-insensitive in the resolved flow range. The invariance to the Reynolds number can be of benefit for the use of scale-resolving simulation methods in the design process of rib structures for heat exchange applications.

Properties of the compressibility and transport motion in wall-bounded turbulent flows at Mach 8

The compressibility effect and transport motion in highspeed turbulent boundary layer (TBL) is a fundamental problem because they dominate the average and statistical characteristics. Using the statistical methods and flow visualization technology, flat-plate TBLs at [Formula: see text] with high- and low-wall temperatures, [Formula: see text] and 1.9, are investigated based on the direct numerical simulation (DNS) datasets. Compared with previous studies, this study considers relative higher Mach number and strong cold wall temperature condition at the same time. First, the turbulent Mach number and turbulent intensity show that the compressibility effects are enhanced by the cooling process. Second, the high-order statistical moments and structure parameters confirm cold wall that causes stronger compressibility and the corresponding increased intensities of local streamwise and wall-normal transport motions. Finally, for uncovering the relationship between the compressibility effect and turbulent transport, more in-depth visualization analyses of velocity streaks are performed. It is found that ‘knot-like’ structures are generated when cooling the wall, and they lead to stronger intermittent, which results in the rapid increase of local compressibility effect and the wall-normal transport motion. Our research sheds light on providing a theoretical basis for further understanding the compressibility effects of TBL at high Mach number.

Effects of edge biasing on blob dynamics and associated transport in the edge of the J-TEXT tokamak

Effects of edge radial electric field Er and Er × B flow shear on edge turbulence and turbulent transport, in particular, on large-scale blobs and blobby transport have been investigated in the positive and negative biasing discharges in the J-TEXT tokamak. The results show that under certain conditions, the positive electrode biasing induces better plasma confinement than the negative biasing. Further studies reveal that in addition to flow shear effects on blob dynamics, the local radial electric field at the edge region plays a significant role in repulsion of the blobs and associated transport, leading to improvement of particle confinement when the outward motion of the blobs is blocked. The results are in accordance with theoretical predictions.

Non-linear MHD modelling of Edge Localized Modes suppression by Resonant Magnetic Perturbations in ITER

Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) suppression by Resonant Magnetic Perturbations (RMPs) was studied with the non-linear MHD code JOREK for the ITER H-mode scenarios at 15MA,12.5MA,10MA/5.3T. The main aim of this work was to demonstrate that ELMs can be suppressed by RMPs while the divertor 3D footprints of heat and particle fluxes remain within divertor material limits. The unstable peeling-ballooning modes responsible for ELMs without RMPs were modelled first for each scenario using numerically accessible parameters for ITER. Then the stabilization of ELMs by RMPs was modelled with the same parameters. RMP spectra, optimized by the linear MHD MARS-F code, with main toroidal harmonics N=2, N=3, N=4 have been used as boundary conditions of the computational domain of JOREK, including realistic RMP coils, main plasma, Scrape Off Layer (SOL) divertor and realistic first wall. The model includes all relevant plasma flows: toroidal rotation, two fluid diamagnetic effects and neoclassical poloidal friction. With RMPs, the main toroidal harmonic and the non-linearly coupled harmonics remain dominant at the plasma edge, producing saturated modes and a continuous MHD turbulent transport thereby avoiding ELM crashes in all scenarios considered here. The threshold for ELM suppression was found at a maximum RMP coils current of 45kAt-60kAt compared to the coils maximum capability of 90kAt. In the high beta poloidal steady-state 10MA/5.3T scenario, a rotating QH-mode without ELMs was observed even without RMPs. In this scenario with RMPs N=3, N=4 at 20kAt maximum current in RMP coils, similar QH-mode behavior was observed however with dominant edge harmonic corresponding to the main toroidal number of RMPs. The 3D footprints with RMPs show the characteristic splitting with the main RMP toroidal symmetry. The maximum radial extension of the footprints typically was ~20 cm in inner divertor and ~40 cm in outer divertor with stationary heat fluxes decreasing further out from the initial strike point from ~5MW/m2 to ~1MW/m2 assuming a total power in the divertor and walls is 50MW.

Convection and Dynamo in Newly Born Neutron Stars

To study properties of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) convection and resultant dynamo activities in proto-neutron stars (PNSs), we construct a “PNS in a box” simulation model and solve the compressible MHD equation coupled with a nuclear equation of state (EOS) and simplified leptonic transport. As a demonstration, we apply it to two types of PNS model with different internal structures: a fully convective model and a spherical-shell convection model. By varying the spin rate of the models, the rotational dependence of convection and the dynamo that operate inside the PNS is investigated. We find that, as a consequence of turbulent transport by rotating stratified convection, large-scale structures of flow and thermodynamic fields are developed in all models. Depending on the spin rate and the depth of the convection zone, various profiles of the large-scale structures are obtained, which can be physically understood as steady-state solutions to the “mean-field” equation of motion. Additionally to those hydrodynamic structures, a large-scale magnetic component of  ( 10 15 ) G is also spontaneously organized in disordered tangled magnetic fields in all models. The higher the spin rate, the stronger the large-scale magnetic component grows. Intriguingly, as an overall trend, the fully convective models have a stronger large-scale magnetic component than that in the spherical-shell convection models. The deeper the convection zone extends, the larger the size of the convective eddies becomes. As a result, rotationally constrained convection seems to be more easily achieved in the fully convective model, resulting in a higher efficiency of the large-scale dynamo there. To gain a better understanding of the origin of the diversity of a neutron star’s magnetic field, we need to study the PNS dynamo in a wider parameter range.

Outlier detection for PIV statistics based on turbulence transport

The occurrence of data outliers in PIV measurements remains nowadays a problematic issue; their effective detection is relevant to the reliability of PIV experiments. This study proposes a novel approach to outliers detection from time-averaged three-dimensional PIV data. The principle is based on the agreement of the measured data to the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) transport equation. The ratio between the local advection and production terms of the TKE along the streamline determines the admissibility of the inquired datapoint. Planar and 3D PIV experimental datasets are used to demonstrate that in the presence of outliers, the turbulent transport (TT) criterion yields a large separation between correct and erroneous vectors. The comparison between the TT criterion and the state-of-the-art universal outlier detection from Westerweel and Scarano (Exp Fluids 39:1096–1100, 2005) shows that the proposed criterion yields a larger percentage of detected outliers along with a lower fraction of false positives for a wider range of possible values chosen for the threshold. Graphical abstract

Role of wave-particle resonance in turbulent transport in toroidal plasmas

The clear understanding of the wave-particle interaction and associated transport mechanism of different particle species in the drift wave instabilities is important for accurate modeling and predictions of the plasma confinement properties. Our global gyrokinetic simulations find that electron particle and heat transport decreases to a very low level, while ion heat transport level has no dramatic change when wave-particle resonance is suppressed in the collisionless trapped electron mode (CTEM) turbulence in the tokamak core. Similarly, ion heat transport in the self-consistent ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence simulation is qualitatively similar to that in the test-particle simulation using the static ITG turbulence fields. These simulation results show that electron transport is primarily driven by the wave-particle resonance in the CTEM turbulence, but the ion transport is mostly driven by the nonlinear wave-particle scattering in both the CTEM and ITG turbulence.