#154
Reduced modelling of runaway plateau particle & power balance in TCV benign termination experiments
Oral
Tijs Wijkamp (Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research)
E.M. Hollmann, J. Decker, O. Ficker, M. Hoppe, S. Jachmich, M. Pedrini, C. Reux, U. Sheikh, the TCV Team, the EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation Team
Abstract
Massive hydrogen injection is a promising path to the benign termination of post-disruption runaway electron (RE) beams in tokamaks. The high-pressure H2/D2 neutral population forms an efficient heat loss channel from the RE companion plasma to the wall, yielding near-complete recombination. The resulting low electron density accelerates MHD instability growth, spreading the REs over a large wall area in secondary disruptions as observed in JET, DIII-D, AUG and TCV. Extrapolation to reactor conditions requires understanding the dominant particle and power sources and sinks.
In recent years, E.M. Hollmann et al. developed a model to interpret DIII-D and JET benign termination experiments [1,2], subsequently making the first extrapolations to ITER and SPARC-like conditions [3]. This reduced model evolves a fluid plasma and neutral population and RE momentum distribution in a 1D cylindrical geometry, resolving the temporal dynamics at limited computational costs.
In TCV, extensive neutral pressure scans have been performed with H2 and D2, for both Ar and Ne as a primary injection species [4]. This dataset presents an opportunity for validation of the simulator, focusing on the plasma-chemistry and neutral heat transfer models underlying the code. This will enhance confidence in the extrapolation of the reduced model and help inform higher fidelity models on the physics to be included. In this contribution, recent modifications to the code and a preliminary comparison to TCV experiments are presented.
[1] E.M. Hollmann et al. 2019 Nuclear Fusion 59 106014.
[2] E.M. Hollmann et al. 2020 Physics of Plasmas 27 042515.
[3] E.M. Hollmann et al. 2023 Nuclear Fusion 63 036011.
[4] U. Sheikh et al. 2024 Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 66 035003.