Publications related to Development and optimisation of advanced auxiliary ion heating schemes for 3D fusion plasma devices

Overview of fast particle experiments in the first MAST Upgrade experimental campaigns

MAST-U is equipped with on-axis and off-axis neutral beam injectors (NBI), and these external sources of super-Alfv & eacute;nic deuterium fast-ions provide opportunities for studying a wide range of phenomena relevant to the physics of alpha-particles in ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Global fluid simulations of plasma turbulence in stellarators

António João Caeiro Heitor Coelho

In order to cope with the decarbonization challenge faced by many countries, fusion is one of the few alternatives to fossil fuels for the production of electricity. Two devices invented in the middle of the previous century have emerged as the most promis ...

EPFL2024

Models implemented in the methodological approach to design the initial STEP first wall contour

Kevin Henricus Annemarie Verhaegh, Dario Vaccaro, Filippo Bagnato, Davide Galassi

The official Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production mission aims to demonstrate the ability to generate net electricity from fusion with the STEP Prototype Power plant. One of the key technological and engineering challenges in fusion power plants is mana ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Long plasma duration operation analyses with an international multi-machine (tokamaks and stellarators) database

Stefano Coda, Jeffrey Huang

Combined high-fusion performance and long-pulse operation is one of the key integration challenges for fusion energy development in magnetic devices. Addressing these challenges requires an integrated vision of physics and engineering aspects with the purp ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Nonlinear simulation of plasma turbulence using a gyrokinetic moment-based approach

Antoine Cyril David Hoffmann

Plasma turbulence plays a fundamental role in determining the performances of magnetic confinement fusion devices, such as tokamaks. Advances in computer science, combined with the development of efficient physical models, have significantly improved our u ...

EPFL2024

Divertor turbulence characterisation using Gas Puff Imaging in the TCV tokamak

Curdin Tobias Wüthrich

The performance of magnetic confinement fusion devices, such as tokamaks, is strongly correlated to the phenomena that occur in the boundary region of the plasma core that faces the wall of the device. The dominant cross-field transport mechanisms from the ...

EPFL2024

Error field detection and correction studies towards ITER operation

Olivier Sauter, Leonardo Pigatto, Bernhard Sieglin

In magnetic fusion devices, error field (EF) sources, spurious magnetic field perturbations, need to be identified and corrected for safe and stable (disruption-free) tokamak operation. Within Work Package Tokamak Exploitation RT04, a series of studies hav ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Tangentially viewing phase contrast imaging for turbulence measurements in toroidal fusion devices

Stefano Coda

Phase contrast imaging (PCI) is an established and powerful technique for measuring density fluctuations in plasmas and has been successfully applied to several fusion devices. Rooted in a concept first developed for microscopy, PCI belongs to the category ...

2024

Experimental study and interpretative modelling of the Power Exhaust in Configurations with Multiple X-Points in TCV

Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno

Nuclear fusion presents a promising clean energy source to mitigate future energy crises, with magnetic confinement fusion well-positioned to provide a baseload scenario to power future reactors. The unmitigated power exhaust of such reactors threatens its ...

EPFL2024

Experiments and gyrokinetic simulations of TCV plasmas with negative triangularity in view of DTT operations

Olivier Sauter, Stefano Coda, Alberto Mariani, Justin Richard Ball, Filippo Bagnato, Matteo Vallar

Negative triangularity (NT) scenarios in TCV have been compared to positive triangularity (PT) scenarios using the same plasma shapes foreseen for divertor tokamak test tokamak operations. The experiments provided a NT/PT L-mode pair and a PT H-mode with d ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Re-design of EU DEMO with a low aspect ratio

Hartmut Zohm

The design point that had been chosen for EU DEMO in 2016 is reviewed here and a modification is proposed with a lower aspect ratio. Previously the same aspect ratio, A, was chosen for EU DEMO as in major tokamak experiments including ITER (A = 3.1), and, ...

2024

Multi-machine benchmark of the self-consistent 1D scrape-off layer model DIV1D from stagnation point to target with SOLPS-ITER

Holger Reimerdes

This paper extends a 1D dynamic physics-based model of the scrape-off layer (SOL) plasma, DIV1D, to include the core SOL and possibly a second target. The extended model is benchmarked on 1D mapped SOLPS-ITER simulations to find input settings for DIV1D th ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Disruption avoidance and investigation of the H-Mode density limit in ASDEX Upgrade

Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Alessandro Pau, Bernhard Sieglin

In recent years a strong effort has been made to investigate disruption avoidance schemes in order to aid the development of integrated operational scenarios for ITER. Within the EUROfusion programme the disruptive H-mode density limit (HDL) has been studi ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

NBI optimization on SMART and implications for scenario development

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli

The SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) under commissioning at the University of Seville, Spain, aims to explore confinement properties and possible advantages in confinement for compact/spherical tokamaks operating at negative vs. positive triangularity. T ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Gyrokinetic simulations of turbulence in magnetic fusion plasmas using a delta-f PIC scheme with evolving background

Moahan Murugappan

Using the GKEngine code which simulates an electrostatic plasma with adiabatic electron response under a sheared-slab geometry, an attempt at developing a hybrid approach between the delta-f and full-f schemes to describe plasma profiles exhibiting high fl ...

EPFL2024

Progress in the development of the ITER baseline scenario in TCV

Olivier Sauter, Stefano Coda, Alexander Karpushov, Yann Camenen, Benoît Labit, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Olivier Claude Martin Février, Simon Van Mulders, Filippo Bagnato, Alessandro Pau, Matteo Vallar, Cassandre Ekta Contré, Stefano Marchioni, Oleg Krutkin, Reinart Andreas J. Coosemans

Under the auspices of EUROfusion, the ITER baseline (IBL) scenario has been jointly investigated on AUG and TCV in the past years and this paper reports on the developments on TCV. It is found that the performance of TCV IBL is mainly limited by (neoclassi ...

2024

Towards practical reinforcement learning for tokamak magnetic control

Jonas Buchli, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Cristian Galperti, Brendan Tracey

Reinforcement learning (RL) has shown promising results for real-time control systems, including the domain of plasma magnetic control. However, there are still significant drawbacks compared to traditional feedback control approaches for magnetic confinem ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Scenario optimization for the tokamak ramp-down phase in RAPTOR: A. Analysis and model validation on ASDEX Upgrade

Olivier Sauter, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Anna Teplukhina, Simon Van Mulders, Cassandre Ekta Contré, Bernhard Sieglin

We discuss how the combination of experimental observations and rapid modeling has enabled to improve understanding of the tokamak ramp-down phase in ASDEX Upgrade. A series of dedicated experiments has been performed, to disentangle the effect of individu ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Maintenance and optimization of the TCV power supply

Damien Fasel, Ugo Siravo, Jérémie Dubray

The TCV tokamak is powered by a flywheel generator to supply the magnetic coils and the auxiliary heating systems. The generator has just undergone its fourth major overhaul to make it ready for the next ten years, after more than thirty years of almost tr ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Scenario optimization for the tokamak ramp-down phase in RAPTOR. Part B: safe termination of DEMO plasmas

Olivier Sauter, Emiliano Fable, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Anna Teplukhina, Simon Van Mulders, Cassandre Ekta Contré

An optimized plasma current ramp-down strategy is critical for safe and fast termination of plasma discharges in a tokamak demonstration fusion reactor (DEMO), both in planned and emergency scenarios, avoiding plasma disruptions and excessive heat loads to ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024