Principal Investigator (PI):
Max E. Fenstermacher
Co-PI:
X. Q. Xu
Participants:
I. Joseph, M. Lanctot, T. Rognlien, M. Umansky, C. Lasnier, V. Soukhanovskii
Duration:
3 years
Description:
The goal of this project is to develop physics understanding and predictive capability for the potentially damaging heat and particle fluxes from ELMs in tokamaks through a unique continuous integration of experimental diagnostic measurements and validated simulation tools. This includes measuring and analyzing ELM characteristics, guided by theory, with new and existing diagnostics on the two largest U.S. tokamaks to understand plasma facing component heat-deposition patterns and more benign ELM regimes, both naturally occurring and induced by mitigation techniques. Guided by experiment, the capability of our 3D BOUT/BOUT++ plasma turbulence code will be extended to include the full non-linear ELM cycle in the experimental parameter regimes. Improved physics understanding of the effect of 3D Resonant Magnetic Perturbations [RMP] on DIII-D and of novel 2D divertor geometries (Snowflake Divertor on NSTX) on ELMs will be realized thorough validation of the simulation models with experimental data.