Overview of the SPARC tokamak Creely, A. J.; Greenwald, M. J.; Ballinger, S. B. ...
Journal of plasma physics,
10/2020, Letnik:
86, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The SPARC tokamak is a critical next step towards commercial fusion energy. SPARC is designed as a high-field ($B_0 = 12.2$ T), compact ($R_0 = 1.85$ m, $a = 0.57$ m), superconducting, D-T tokamak ...with the goal of producing fusion gain $Q>2$ from a magnetically confined fusion plasma for the first time. Currently under design, SPARC will continue the high-field path of the Alcator series of tokamaks, utilizing new magnets based on rare earth barium copper oxide high-temperature superconductors to achieve high performance in a compact device. The goal of $Q>2$ is achievable with conservative physics assumptions ($H_{98,y2} = 0.7$) and, with the nominal assumption of $H_{98,y2} = 1$, SPARC is projected to attain $Q \approx 11$ and $P_{\textrm {fusion}} \approx 140$ MW. SPARC will therefore constitute a unique platform for burning plasma physics research with high density ($\langle n_{e} \rangle \approx 3 \times 10^{20}\ \textrm {m}^{-3}$), high temperature ($\langle T_e \rangle \approx 7$ keV) and high power density ($P_{\textrm {fusion}}/V_{\textrm {plasma}} \approx 7\ \textrm {MW}\,\textrm {m}^{-3}$) relevant to fusion power plants. SPARC's place in the path to commercial fusion energy, its parameters and the current status of SPARC design work are presented. This work also describes the basis for global performance projections and summarizes some of the physics analysis that is presented in greater detail in the companion articles of this collection.
Lithium wall coatings have been shown to reduce recycling, suppress edge-localized modes (ELMs), and improve energy confinement in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Here we document the ...effect of gradually increasing lithium wall coatings on the discharge characteristics, with the reference ELMy discharges obtained in boronized, i.e. non-lithiated conditions. We observed a continuous but not quite monotonic reduction in recycling and improvement in energy confinement, a gradual alteration of edge plasma profiles, and slowly increasing periods of ELM quiescence. The measured edge plasma profiles during the lithium-coating scan were simulated with the SOLPS code, which quantified the reduction in divertor recycling coefficient from ∼98% to ∼90%. The reduction in recycling and fuelling, coupled with a drop in the edge particle transport rate, reduced the average edge density profile gradient, and shifted it radially inwards from the separatrix location. In contrast, the edge electron temperature (Te) profile was unaffected in the H-mode pedestal steep gradient region within the last 5% of normalized poloidal flux, ψN ; however, the Te gradient became steeper at the top of the H-mode pedestal for 0.8 < ψN < 0.94 with lithium coatings. The peak pressure gradients were comparable during ELMy and ELM-free phases, but were shifted away from the separatrix in the ELM-free discharges, which is stabilizing to the current-driven instabilities thought to be responsible for ELMs in NSTX.
An H-mode edge pedestal plasma transport benchmarking exercise was undertaken for a single DIII-D pedestal. Transport modelling codes used include 1.5D interpretive (ONETWO, GTEDGE), 1.5D predictive ...(ASTRA) and 2D ones (SOLPS, UEDGE). The particular DIII-D discharge considered is 98889, which has a typical low density pedestal. Profiles for the edge plasma are obtained from Thomson and charge-exchange recombination data averaged over the last 20% of the average 33.53 ms repetition time between type I edge localized modes. The modelled density of recycled neutrals is largest in the divertor X-point region and causes the edge plasma source rate to vary by a factor ∼10
2
on the separatrix. Modelled poloidal variations in the densities and temperatures on flux surfaces are small on all flux surfaces up to within about 2.6 mm (ρ
N
> 0.99) of the mid-plane separatrix. For the assumed Fick's-diffusion-type laws, the radial heat and density fluxes vary poloidally by factors of 2–3 in the pedestal region; they are largest on the outboard mid-plane where flux surfaces are compressed and local radial gradients are largest. Convective heat flows are found to be small fractions of the electron (≲10%) and ion (≲25%) heat flows in this pedestal. Appropriately averaging the transport fluxes yields interpretive 1.5D effective diffusivities that are smallest near the mid-point of the pedestal. Their ‘transport barrier’ minima are about 0.3 (electron heat), 0.15 (ion heat) and 0.035 (density) m
2
s
−1
. Electron heat transport is found to be best characterized by electron-temperature-gradient-induced transport at the pedestal top and paleoclassical transport throughout the pedestal. The effective ion heat diffusivity in the pedestal has a different profile from the neoclassical prediction and may be smaller than it. The very small effective density diffusivity may be the result of an inward pinch flow nearly balancing a diffusive outward radial density flux. The inward ion pinch velocity and density diffusion coefficient are determined by a new interpretive analysis technique that uses information from the force balance (momentum conservation) equations; the paleoclassical transport model provides a plausible explanation of these new results. Finally, the measurements and additional modelling needed to facilitate better pedestal plasma transport modelling are discussed.
Abstract A predictive form of the extended 2-point model known as the ‘reverse 2-point model’, Rev2PM, is applied to a range of detachment levels in the open lower divertor of DIII-D, showing that ...the experimentally measured electron temperature ( T e ) and pressure ( p e ) at the divertor entrance can be calculated within 50% from target measurements, if and only if a posteriori corrections for convective heat flux are included in the model. Unlike the standard 2-point model, the Rev2PM calculates upstream scrape-off layer (SOL) quantities (such as separatrix T e and p e ) from target conditions (such as T e and parallel heat flux), with volumetric power and momentum losses depending solely on target T e . The Rev2PM is tested against a database of DIII-D inter-ELM divertor Thomson scattering measurements, built from a series of 6 MW, 1.3 MA, LSN H-mode discharges with varied main ion density, drift direction, and nitrogen puffing rate. Measured target T e ranged from 0.4–25 eV over this database, and upstream T e ranged from 5–60 eV. Poor agreement is found between upstream measurements and Rev2PM calculations that assume purely conductive parallel heat transport. However, introducing a posteriori corrections to account for convective heat transport brings the Rev2PM calculations within 50% of the measured upstream values across the dataset. These corrections imply that up to 99% of the parallel heat flux is carried by convection in detached conditions in the DIII-D open lower divertor, though further work is required to assess any potential dependencies on device size or divertor closure.
Abstract Integrated modeling of plasma-surface interactions provides a comprehensive and self-consistent description of the system, moving the field closer to developing predictive and design ...capabilities for plasma facing components. One such workflow, including descriptions for the scrape-off-layer plasma, ion-surface interactions and the sub-surface evolution, was previously used to address steady-state scenarios and has recently been extended to incorporate time-dependence and two-way information flow. The new model can address dynamic recycling in transient scenarios, such as the application presented in this paper: the evolution of W samples pre-damaged by helium and exposed to ELMy H-mode plasmas in the DIII-D DiMES. A first set of simulations explored the effect of ELM frequency. This study was discussed in detail in this conference’s proceedings and is summarized here. The 2nd set of simulations, which is the focus of this paper, explores the effect of code-coupling frequency. These simulations include initial SOLPS solutions converged to the inter-ELM state, ion impact energy ( E in ) and angles ( A in ) calculated by hPIC2, and an improved heat transfer description in Xolotl. The model predicts increases in particle fluxes and decreases in heat fluxes by 10%–20% with the coupling time-step. Compared with the first set of simulations, the less shallow impact angle leads to smaller reflection rates and significant D implantation. The higher fraction of implanted flux (and deeper), in particular during ELMs, increases the accumulated D content in the W near-surface region. Future expansion of the workflow includes coupling to hPIC2 and GITR to ensure accurate descriptions of E in and A in , and W impurity transport.
Here in this work, the UEDGE edge transport code is used to examine conditions in the SPARC divertor and edge plasma for various levels of carbon impurity and power from the core (PSOL). A ...double-null magnetic configuration is simulated assuming up-down symmetry in geometry and physics. The anomalous heat and particle transport coefficients are tuned to match empirical predictions for SPARC's midplane density profiles, target plate heat flux profiles, and inner/outer divertor power sharing. Convective transport is included on the low-field side, while on the high-field side the transport is modeled as purely diffusive. Hydrogen neutrals are modeled as a fluid with inertial effects, and a carbon impurity is included using the fixed-fraction model. We find that detachment induced by impurity seeding could significantly reduce the heat flux to the divertor surfaces in the SPARC tokamak. At PSOL = 28 MW (the value predicted for SPARC's full-power H-mode scenario) cases with both divertor legs detached were obtained with a carbon impurity fraction between 0.3%–1.4%, far below Zeff limits for SPARC. When the plasma in the outer leg is detached, the peak heat flux density perpendicular to the target plate is below 1 MW m-2, electron and ion temperatures are less than 1.5 eV, and momentum detachment is observed. However, the detachment state is found to be sensitive to the side-wall boundary conditions, the level of neutral pumping, and the target plate tilt. Finally, a broadly similar SOLPS simulation of SPARC is used to assess the appropriateness of the simpler impurity and neutral models used in UEDGE.
Edge fluid–plasma/kinetic–neutral modeling of well-diagnosed DIII-D experiments is performed in order to document in detail how well certain aspects of experimental measurements are reproduced within ...the model as the transition to detachment is approached. Results indicate, that at high densities near detachment onset, the poloidal temperature profile produced in the simulations agrees well with that measured in experiment. However, matching the heat flux in the model requires a significant increase in the radiated power compared to what is predicted using standard chemical sputtering rates. These results suggest that the model is adequate to predict the divertor temperature, provided that the discrepancy in radiated power level can be resolved.
Externally imposed non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations are observed to alter divertor heat and particle flux profiles in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). The divertor profiles are ...found to have a modest level of multiple local peaks, characteristic of strike point splitting or the ‘magnetic lobe’ structure, even before the application of the 3D fields in some (but not all) NSTX discharges. This is thought to be due to the intrinsic error fields. The applied 3D fields augmented the intrinsic strike point splitting, making the amplitude of local peaks and valleys larger in the divertor profile and striations at the divertor surface brighter. The measured heat flux profile shows that the radial location and spacing of the striations are qualitatively consistent with a vacuum field tracing calculation. 3D field application did not change the peak divertor heat and particle fluxes at the toroidal location of measurement. Spatial characteristics of the observed patterns are also reported in the paper.
The target power width
is one of the most critical practical quantities in the development of magnetic fusion energy. It is essential to know how to scale this quantity to future devices. At present ...the controlling physics is not adequately understood, making reliable prediction difficult. It seems likely that two important processes effecting
are (a) cross-field transport, e.g.
D
⊥
,
and (b) volumetric power loss processes in the edge plasma, with the latter tending to occur mainly in the divertor for attached divertor conditions. It is hypothesized that a simple relation exists between the ‘upstream’ radial profiles of
n
e
and
T
e
in the main scrape-off layer,
,
, and the parallel power flux density at the divertor
entrance
,
. Such a simple relation is found here in 2D SOLPS edge code simulations of attached divertor conditions, which contain a wide range of more or less complex edge physics effects. It is found that
, as can be expected on the basis of flux-limited parallel heat conduction, rather than Spitzer–Harm conduction for which
is expected. For the relatively open divertor configuration considered, and for attached divertor conditions, it is found that the flux-limited relationship also holds for the SOLPS power flux density deposited on the target
, even including the radiation load; this despite the fact that up to half the power into the SOL is dissipated radiatively. Comparing with experimentally measured target power widths for H-mode discharges, better agreement is found assuming flux limited rather than Spitzer–Harm transport although definitive conclusions will require analysis of specific discharges in specific tokamaks. This study is a necessary preliminary work to an equivalent treatment of the case where volumetric losses in the divertor are stronger, including the detached, strongly radiating divertor case with momentum loss.
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