A Study of Prompt Fast Ion Losses from Neutral Beam Injection in the DIII-D Tokamak

A Study of Prompt Fast Ion Losses from Neutral Beam Injection in the DIII-D Tokamak
Author: Derek Aiden Sutherland
Publisher:
Total Pages: 29
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

A study of the prompt losses of injected neutral beam born fast ions was conducted on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics using scintillator based fast ion loss detectors (FILD) and a reverse orbit calculation code. Prompt losses, also called first orbit losses, result from injected neutrals that are ionized on orbits that terminate to the outer wall before making a complete neoclassical, poloidal revolution. A strike map code has been developed which generates meshes that overlay optical fast ion signals from the FILD scintillator, providing a measurement of the pitch angles and gyroradii of incident fast ions. The pitch angles and gyroradii of incident ions are inputs to a reverse orbit calculation code used to calculate the trajectories of the incident ions in reverse time back to their birth at the intersection of the reverse orbit and an overlaid neutral beam injection footprint. The megahertz (MHz) sampling frequency of the FILD scintillator, along with finer time resolution neutral beam signals, enabled a comparison of the measured time delay between the onset of the neutral beam injection and the measured FILD loss signals with the calculated transit time based on the path length of the simulated reverse orbit. Consistency between the experimentally measured transit times and the simulation orbit times was observed. This result indicates the generated strike maps which provide a measurement of incident ions' gyroradii and pitch angles are accurate. This study supplements current studies seeking to improve the understanding of fast ion transport due to magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activity, such as reverse shear Alfven eigenmodes (RSAEs) and toroidal Alfven eigenmodes (TAEs), which will be of great importance for predominately self-heated reactor scenarios.

Issues in Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research: 2011 Edition

Issues in Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research: 2011 Edition
Author:
Publisher: ScholarlyEditions
Total Pages: 1751
Release: 2012-01-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1464964114

Issues in Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research. The editors have built Issues in Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Applied, Analytical, and Imaging Sciences Research: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Velocity-space Resolved Fast-ion Measurements in the DIII-D Tokamak

Velocity-space Resolved Fast-ion Measurements in the DIII-D Tokamak
Author: Christopher Michael Muscatello
Publisher:
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN: 9781267260550

Superthermal ions in tokamak plasmas play a critical role in heating and current drive, and their confinement within the core of the plasma is crucial for obtaining ignition and sustaining burn in future reactors. At the DIII-D tokamak, a suite of fast-ion measurements is available to diagnose various properties of the superthermal population. This thesis work involves a contribution to DIII-D's fast-ion diagnostic collection: the 2nd generation fast-ion deuterium alpha (2G FIDA) detector. FIDA works on the principle of measuring the light that is emitted from neutralized fast ions that undergo charge exchange events with injected neutral atoms. 2G FIDA complements the other FIDA installations on DIII-D with its unique velocity-space sampling volume. Output from a synthetic diagnostic code (FIDAsim) that predicts FIDA emission levels is compared with measurements from 2G FIDA. We find that, while the predicted and measured shapes of the FIDA spectra agree well, the absolute magnitude of the spectral amplitudes are inconsistent. Results from various FIDAsim trials are presented adjusting several parameters, and it is hypothesized that mischaracterization of the diagnostic neutral beams is a major source of error. Instabilities in tokamaks can cause fast-ion transport. The sawtooth instability is particularly important because the crash phase has been observed to cause reductions up to 50% in the central fast-ion density. Passing ions of all energies are redistributed, but only low energy trapped ions suffer redistribution. The observations are consistent with transport by flux-attachment. Comparisons with theory suggest that the intensity of sawtooth-induced transport depends on the magnitude of toroidal drift. Instabilities characterized by toroidal and poloidal mode numbers and real frequency can coherently interact with energetic particles through mode-particle resonances. During a sawtooth crash, even fast ions whose energies are above the threshold for flux-attachment can experience transport if their orbits satisfy the bounce-precessional resonance condition. On DIII-D, a spatially localized population of beam ions accelerated above the injection energy by ion-cyclotron radio frequency (ICRF) heating is diminished at a sawtooth crash. Furthermore, fast-ion losses concurrent with sawtooth crashes are observed. Calculations show that mode-particle resonances could be responsible. Transport of energetic particles by resonant interactions pertains to many types of instabilities; other examples besides sawteeth will also be presented. Analysis shows that large amplitude modes cause significant resonant transport of fast particles. Even small amplitude modes can resonantly drive transport if multiple harmonics exist.

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 376
Release: 1995
Genre: Aeronautics
ISBN:

Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Mapping and Uncertainty Analysis of Energy and Pitch Angle Phase Space in the DIII-D Fast Ion Loss Detector

Mapping and Uncertainty Analysis of Energy and Pitch Angle Phase Space in the DIII-D Fast Ion Loss Detector
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

New phase space mapping and uncertainty analysis of energetic ion loss data in the DIII-D tokamak provides experimental results that serve as valuable constraints in first-principles simulations of energetic ion transport. Beam ion losses are measured by the fast ion loss detector (FILD) diagnostic system consisting of two magnetic spectrometers placed independently along the outer wall. Monte Carlo simulations of mono-energetic and single-pitch ions reaching the FILDs are used to determine the expected uncertainty in the measurements. Modeling shows that the variation in gyrophase of 80 keV beam ions at the FILD aperture can produce an apparent measured energy signature spanning across 50-140 keV. As a result, these calculations compare favorably with experiments in which neutral beam prompt loss provides a well known energy and pitch distribution.

Measurement and Simulation of Deuterium Balmer-alpha Emission from First-orbit Fast Ions and the Application to Neutral Density and General Fast-ion Loss Detection in the DIII-D Tokamak

Measurement and Simulation of Deuterium Balmer-alpha Emission from First-orbit Fast Ions and the Application to Neutral Density and General Fast-ion Loss Detection in the DIII-D Tokamak
Author: Nathan Glynn Bolte
Publisher:
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

Spectra of the Balmer-alpha radiation of first-orbit fast ions after charge exchange with edge neutrals have been measured in the DIII-D tokamak. Several collimated optics systems view the edge region--while avoiding any active beams--and carry light to a spectrometer tuned to the region of the 656.1 nm deuterium-alpha line. Viewing geometry and the high energy of the lost ions produce Doppler shifts, which effectively separate the fast-ion contributions from the bright, cold edge light. Modulation of the fast-ion source allows for time-evolving background subtraction. A model has been developed for the spectra of these first-orbit fast ions. The passive fast-ion D-alpha simulation (P-FIDAsim) is a forward model consisting of an experimentally- validated beam model, an ion orbit-following code, a collisional-radiative model, and a synthetic spectrometer. Eighty-six experimental spectra were obtained using 6 different neutral beam fast-ion sources and 13 different viewing chords. Parameters such as plasma current, toroidal field, electron density, plasma cross-sectional shape, and number of x-points were varied. Uncalibrated experimental spectra have an overall Spearman rank correlation coefficient with the shape of simulated spectra of 0.58 with subsets of cases rising to a correlation of 0.80. A single set of calibrated spectra (shot 152817) was measured and is used to estimate the neutral density throughout the cross-section of the tokamak. This is done by inverting the simulated spectra in order to nd the best neutral density (in a least squares sense) required to best match the experimental spectra. The resulting 2D neutral density shows the expected increase toward each x-point. The average neutral density is found to be 3.3 x 105 cm ̄3 at the magnetic axis, 2.3 x 108 cm ̄3 in the core, 8.1 x 109 cm ̄3 at the plasma boundary, and 1.1 x 1011 cm ̄3 near the wall. A technique is developed which--after using first-orbit light to calibrate the system--can quantify losses from a wider variety of mechanisms. Fast-ion losses resulting from sawtooth crashes (shot 149941) is estimated to eject 1.2% of the fast-ion inventory, in good agreement with a 1.7% loss estimate made by the TRANSP code.

ANALYSIS OF COMBINED FWCD AND NBI IN THE DIII-D TOKAMAK.

ANALYSIS OF COMBINED FWCD AND NBI IN THE DIII-D TOKAMAK.
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2001
Genre:
ISBN:

In recent experiments with combined fast wave current drive (FWCD) and deuterium neutral beam injection on the DIII-D tokamak [Luxon and Davis, Fusion Technol. 8, 441 (1985)], an enhanced fusion reactivity and fast ion energy content have been observed in the presence of FWCD, with a concomitant low FWCD efficiency [Petty et al., Radio Frequency Power in Plasmas (AIP, New York, 1997), p. 225]. In this paper, we investigate whether high-harmonic ion cyclotron damping could be responsible for the low FWCD efficiency in these experiments, since a number of high-harmonic hydrogen and deuterium cyclotron resonance layers existed in the plasma. The main analysis tool is the ICRF code PION [Eriksson, Hellsten and Willen, Nucl. Fusion 33, 1037 (1993)], modified to allow multiple frequencies simultaneously as was done in the DIII-D experiments. According to the PION modeling, high harmonic damping of fast wave power can give rise to enhanced fusion reactivity and fast ion energy content, which is consistent with the experimental observations.

Alfv?nic Instabilities and Fast Ion Transport in the DIII-D Tokamak

Alfv?nic Instabilities and Fast Ion Transport in the DIII-D Tokamak
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 10
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

Neutral beam injection into reversed magnetic shear DIII-D plasmas produces a variety of Alfvenic activity including Toroidicity and Ellipticity induced Alfven Eigenmodes (TAE/EAE, respectively) and Reversed Shear Alfven Eigenmodes (RSAE) as well as their spatial coupling. These modes are typically studied during the discharge current ramp phase when incomplete current penetration results in a high central safety factor and strong drive due to multiple higher order resonances. During this same time period Fast-Ion D{sub {alpha}} (FIDA) spectroscopy shows that the central fast ion profile is flattened, the degree of which depends on the Alfven eigenmode amplitude. Interestingly, localized electron cyclotron heating (ECH) near the mode location stabilizes RSAE activity and results in significantly improved fast ion confinement relative to discharges with ECH deposition on axis. In these discharges, RSAE activity is suppressed when ECH is deposited near the radius of the shear reversal point and enhanced with deposition near the axis. To simulate the observed neutral beam ion redistribution, NOVA calculations of the 3D eigenmode structures are matched with experimental measurements and used in combination with the ORBIT guiding center following code. For fixed frequency eigenmodes, it is found that ORBIT calculations cannot explain the observed beam ion transport with experimentally measured mode amplitudes. Possible explanations are considered including recent simulation results incorporating eigenmodes with time dependent frequencies.