Recent fusion experiments on the DIII-D
tokamak at General Atomics (San Diego) and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT
(Cambridge, Massachusetts), show that beaming microwaves into the center of the
plasma can be used to control the density in the center of the plasma, where a
fusion reactor would produce most of its power. Several megawatts of microwaves
mimic the way fusion reactions would supply heat to plasma electrons to keep
the "fusion burn" going. The new experiments reveal that turbulent
density fluctuations in the inner core intensify when most of the heat goes to
electrons instead of plasma ions, as would happen in the center of a
self-sustaining fusion reaction. Supercomputer simulations closely reproduce
the experiments, showing that the electrons become more turbulent as they are
more strongly heated, and this transports both particles and heat out of the
plasma. "We are beginning to uncover the
fundamental mechanisms that control the density, under conditions relevant to a
real fusion reactor," says Dr. Darin Ernst, a physicist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the experiments and simulations,
together with co-leaders Dr. Keith Burrell (General Atomics), Dr. Walter
Guttenfelder (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), and Dr. Terry Rhodes
(UCLA). The experiments were conducted by a team of
researchers as part of a National Fusion Science Campaign. This new program
enables research on one fusion experiment to be expanded to device another with
complementary instrumentation and capabilities. "The National Campaign has
increased the impact of our work, with added benefit to the fusion
program," says Dr. Ernst. "Comparing Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D tests
our new predictions that particle collisions strongly reduce this type of
turbulence. The collision rate varies by a factor of ten between the two
machines," says Ernst. The experiments and simulations suggest that trapped electron
turbulence becomes more important under the conditions expected in self-heated
fusion reactors. The structure of the simulated turbulence during the electron
heating is shown at right. The simulations closely matched detailed
measurements of the actual turbulence in the 20cm diameter inner core. "We
discovered sheared flows also drive turbulence in the inner plasma core, but as
we approached conditions where mainly the electrons are heated, the usual
plasma flow is reduced and pure trapped electron turbulence begins to
dominate," says Dr. Guttenfelder, who did the supercomputer simulations
for the DIII-D experiments, along with Dr. Andris Dimits (LLNL). Measurements
revealed a band of fluctuations, separated by a constant frequency interval,
like harmonics in a musical note. "These new coherent fluctuations appear
to be consistent with the basic trapped electron instability that grows
stronger during heating, " says Dr. Rhodes. In a self-heated fusion reactor, fusion
reactions produce very energetic alpha particles that collide with electrons as
they move through the plasma. The collisions heat the electrons by imparting
random thermal motion. The electrons in turn collide with and heat cooler
deuterium and tritium fuel ions to fusion temperatures. However, turbulent
eddies can swirl the particles and energy away from the hot core toward the cooler
edge, where they eventually are lost to the walls of the chamber. Supercomputer
simulation shows turbulent density fluctuations in the core of the Alcator
C-Mod tokamak during strong electron heating. These experiments are part of a larger
systematic study of turbulent energy and particle loss under fusion-relevant
conditions. "It's important to understand what drives the turbulence, and
how it can be controlled and minimized, to find new ways of operating tokamaks
that exploit that knowledge," says Dr. Burrell. By comparing detailed
turbulence measurements with simulations, researchers hope to understand how
turbulence controls the core temperature under fusion conditions. |
Powered by Discuz! X3.2 © 2001-2013 Comsenz Inc.