Accepted Manuscripts

Deep pellet fueling depth is necessary to achieve a high-density high confinement operation and to conduct some pellet-related researches in current devices, such as trigger of internal transport barrier, and to achieve high fusion power and tritium burn-up fraction in future fusion devices. The newly developed PAM code which can make a fast evaluation on pellet ablation and deposition is applied to optimize injection parameters to achieve deep pellet fueling. Systematic scans on pellet injection parameters including pellet injection position, injection angle, size and speed are performed for optimization purpose, while at the same time demonstrating flexibility and time efficiency of the PAM code. Dependences of the pellet fueling depth on these injection parameters are revealed by simulation results and analyzed. Simulation results indicate that pellet penetration contributes more to the deep pellet deposition than the ∇B-induced plasmoid drifts in low temperature plasmas, while deep pellet fueling in reactor relevant high temperature plasmas has to rely on plasmoid drifts. Though a shallow penetration is expected in high temperature plasmas, the ∇B-induced plasmoid drift is expected to be larger than that in relatively low temperature plasmas.

The vapor-box is a liquid metal based design to cope with the demanding conditions of the divertor. This design relies on the recirculation of lithium by evaporation and condensation. An issue to this approach is the safety risks of Li-D/T formation and co-deposition on both the vapor-box walls - leading to possible recirculation impedance- and on the first wall leading to unacceptable tritium retention. Additively manufactured tungsten Capillary Porous Structure (CPS) samples filled with Li were exposed to high heat flux D plasmas in the linear plasma device Magnum-PSI and Li-D co-deposition was measured as a function of substrate temperature, estimated to be in the range 200-428 ${^\circ}$C and distance between 25-85 mm to the plasma beam center. The D:Li ratio was determined via in-situ ion beam diagnostics (NRA and EBS) and the spectra analyzed simultaneously to maximise the precision of the measurement. The experimental results approach close to the theoretical maximum at 40:60 D:Li ratio and the thickness of the deposited films was 0.02 - 3.2 $\mu$m. For witness plate temperatures above 400 ${^\circ}$C Li films under 150 nm in thickness were deposited and show lower D:Li ratios, as low as 5:95 D:Li ratio. At these temperatures the evaporation rate from the WPs is close to the deposition rate, and the decomposition pressure for LiD becomes comparable to the operational pressure in the vessel during the discharge. SOLPS-ITER simulations were also conducted to complement the experimental data. The results were used to narrow the range of CPS surface temperature to between $650-700$^{\circ}$C and determined that the D$^{+}$ plasma is largely replaced by Li$^{+}$ plasma close to the target surface. Further, the redeposition ratio of the lithium on the CPS surface is determined to be around 80$\%$, which matches well with the value determined from a quartz crystal microbalance. Due to limitations in the modeling of neutral interactions with Li coated surfaces, the SOLPS-ITER modeling does not well recreate the observed Li and D deposition layers on the WPs, indicating that this aspect of the modeling in Eirene needs improvement to accurately model plasmas containing significant quantities of Li. However, SOLPS-ITER simulations should be extended to include LiD molecules and improve the accuracy of heat flux towards the target to improve the comparison with experimental data.

A more complete non-perturbative magnetohydrodynamic(MHD)-kinetic hybrid formulation is developed by including the perturbed electrostatic potential delta-phi in the particle Lagrangian. The fluid-like counter-parts of the hybrid equations, in the Chew-Goldberger-Low high-frequency limit, are also derived and utilized to test the new toroidal implementation in the MARS-K code. Application of the updated non-perturbative hybrid model for a high-beta spherical tokamak plasma in MAST finds that the perturbed electrostatic potential generally plays a minor role in the n=1 (n is the toroidal mode number) RWM instability. The effect of delta-phi is largely destabilizing, with the growth rate of the instability increased by several (up to 20) percent as compared to the case without including delta-phi. A similar relative change is also obtained for the kinetic-induced resonant field amplification effect at high-$\beta$ in the MAST plasma considered. The updated capability of the MARS-K code allows quantitative exploration of drift kinetic effects on various MHD instabilities and the antenna-driven plasma response where the electrostatic perturbation, coupled to magnetic perturbations, may play important roles. 

We perform a systematic simulation study of energetic passing particle-driven instabilities in KSTAR using the kinetic-MHD hybrid code M3D-K. Linear simulation results show that the observed n = 1 mode in the early phase of the discharge is the low-frequency fishbone driven by energetic passing beam ions. The mode frequency computed is in a good agreement with the experimental measurement. Nonlinear simulations show that the frequency of the n = 1 mode jumps up to a higher value corresponding to the β-induced Alfv ́en eigenmode (BAE). In the later phase of the discharge, the simulated n = 5 mode is identified as a BAE in its linear phase. In the nonlinear phase, the n = 5 mode exhibits a similar frequency jump to a higher value of an energetic particle mode (EPM) after mode saturation. Analysis of perturbed beam ion distributions in phase space shows that these new modes in nonlinear stages are driven by new resonances due to nonlinearly evolved beam ion distributions. Further simulations of a beam beta scan for the n = 5 mode show that the frequency jump disappears for a sufficiently small beam beta or beam ion drive. This result may explain the non-existence of frequency jump in the experiment. Finally, the impact of toroidal rotation on mode characteristics is investigated, showing that it has a marginal influence on energetic particle driven modes.

In order to achieve their goals, future thermonuclear reactors such as ITER and DEMO are expected to operate plasmas with high magnetic field, triangularity and confinement. With the objective to address the corresponding challenges, a concept of the high field (BT ≤ 5 T), high current (IP ≤ 2 MA) COMPASS Upgrade tokamak was established and the device is currently being constructed in Prague, Czech Republic.
This contribution provides an overview of the priority physics topics for the future physics programme of COMPASS Upgrade, namely: (i) characterisation of alternative confinement modes, (ii) power exhaust including liquid metals, (iii) operation with hot first wall and (iv) influence of plasma shape on pedestal stability and confinement. The main scenarios are presented, as predicted by METIS and FIESTA codes. Pedestal pressure and density are estimated using EPED, multi-machine semi-empirical scalings and a neutral penetration model. Access to detachment is estimated using a detachment qualifier.

Experimental research on the electron cyclotron wave (ECW) pre-ionization and assisted start-up was carried out systematically for the first time in EAST tokamak, which is a superconducting device with ITER-like full metal wall. Breakdown and plasma initiation at low toroidal electric fields (<0.3 V/m) with ECW pre-ionization and startup assistance has been demonstrated. Also, the parameter domain of breakdown is significantly extended towards higher prefill gas pressure. The effect of ECW injection timing, power, toroidal injection angle on breakdown were also investigated. Injecting ECW earlier leads to an earlier breakdown and a higher plasma current ramp rate. The electron cyclotron heating (ECH) power threshold for breakdown in EAST is approximately 0.4 MW. In the range of ECH power tested in this work, higher ECH power is advantageous for achieving earlier and faster breakdown. Furthermore, the breakdown with radial ECW injection occurs earlier compared with oblique injections (co-current and counter-current). During the ECW-assisted startup, the process of burn-through is prolonged by the higher pre-filled gas pressure even though it enhances the ease of breakdown. In addition, compared to the low hybrid wave (LHW) assistance, the ECW assistance has an effect in averting the generation of runaway electrons and improving the safety of device during startup. Moreover, the ECW assistance exhibits a high tolerance to the impurity and thus ensures a high ramp rate of plasma current even with a high impurity level.

China has contributed to the manufacturing of the Error Field Correction Coils (CC) and the Magnet Feeders for ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). The manufacturing projects have been carried by ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences). In this paper, the lessons learned from these two manufacturing projects will be described with special focus on some key manufacturing processes. These experiences gained from the work carried so far in correction coil and magnet feeder manufacturing and testing are very valuable not only for the remaining manufacturing tasks of these two projects, but also for similar systems of other Tokamak fusion device.

Four Test Blanket Systems (TBS) will be tested in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) equatorial ports #16 and #18 to verify tritium breeding and heat extraction technology. A significant quantity of tritium would be produced in TBM, and partly released into the port cell from the pipework of TBS or other high-temperature components due to its strong mobility and high permeation. The port cell should be accessible during equipment maintenance and human intervention. This work built a multi-dimensional geometric model to characterize HTO transport in the port cell, absorption/desorption, and diffusion in walls and discussed the effect of paint thickness, ventilation rate, source term, and epoxy properties on detritiation efficiency. The results suggest that a 0.1-0.16 mm paint with the lowest HTO solubility is optimal from the compromise between quick cleanup and tritiated waste decommission. A higher ventilation rate could accelerate detritiation while minimizing the radioactive source by a tritium-resisting layer is the most direct method. The optimized design options for reducing the time required to reach 1 DAC in 12 h still need further discussion because of the delayed HTO source from epoxy paint and dead zone of the flow field.

A neural network, BES-ELMnet, predicting a quasi-periodic disruptive eruption of the plasma energy and particles known as edge localized mode (ELM) onset is developed with observed pedestal turbulence from the beam emission spectroscopy system in D\rom{3}-D. BES-ELMnet has convolutional and fully-connected layers, taking two-dimensional plasma fluctuations with a temporal window of size 128\:$\mu$s and generating a scalar output which can be interpreted as a probability of the upcoming ELM onset. As approximately labelled inter-ELM broadband (15\:kHz\:$\leq f\leq$\:150\:kHz) fluctuations are given to the network, BES-ELMnet learns by itself ELM-related precursors arising before the onsets through supervised learning scheme. BES-ELMnet achieves the gradually increasing ELM onset probabilities between two consecutive ELMs during the inter-ELM phases and can forecast the first ELM onsets which occur after the high confinement mode transition. We further investigate the network generality in terms of the selected frequency band to ensure the use of BES-ELMnet for various operation regimes without changing the trained architecture. Therefore, our novel prediction method will enhance a proactive high confinement mode control of fusion-grade plasmas.

The parametric decay of toroidal Alfvén eigenmode (TAE) in nonuniform plasmas is investigated using nonlinear gyrokinetic equation. It is found that, the plasma nonuniformity not only significantly enhances the nonlinear coupling cross-section, but also qualitatively modifies the decay process. Specifically, the condition for spontaneous decay becomes the toroidal mode number of the sideband TAE being higher than that of the pump TAE, instead of the frequency of the sideband TAE being lower than the pump TAE in uniform plasmas. The consequences on TAE saturation and energetic particle transport are also discussed.