SOLPS-ITER analysis of a proposed STEP double null geometry:Impact of the degree of disconnection on power-sharing

Abstract

To mitigate the issue of plasma exhaust in reactor scale tight aspect ratio tokamaks such as Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP), a double-null (DN) configuration is thought to be advantageous over a single-null (SN) configuration. However, practical control of the plasma vertical stability will likely lead to an oscillation around the symmetry point, which may lead to transient loading of the divertors. In this work we investigated the impact of disconnection of the two separatrices δRsep on the power-sharing between the divertors in disconnected-double-null configurations for the initial iteration of STEP design using the SOLPS-ITER code without drifts. The power fraction to the primary divertor increased with δRsep, reaching 1/495% at the highest δRsep which is representative of SN. The total power fraction to the inner divertors (upper + lower), however, did not show an increase with δRsep for δRsep/λq.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Osawa, R. T. Moulton, D. Newton, S. L. Henderson, S. S. Lipschultz, B. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5968-3684 Hudoba, A.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	Funding Information: This work has been funded by STEP, a UKAEA program to design and build a prototype fusion energy plant and a path to commercial fusion. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s) 1/22, where λ q is the parallel heat flux decay length, and even at the highest δRsep it showed only 1/430% increase from connected-double-null (CDN), unlike the experimental results for current conventional aspect ratio machines. We found two underlying mechanisms that could explain this result - the total flux compression from the outer midplane to the primary inner divertor target and the parallel current in the primary SOL (between the two separatrices). This work implies that the benefit of DN over SN in power load onto the inner divertor in STEP may be less than found experimentally in conventional tokamaks due to its tight aspect ratio. Further investigations through experiments, especially on STs and simulations with additional physics such as drifts, are the subject of a future investigation.
Keywords:	disconnected-double-null configuration,power-sharing,SOLPS-ITER,STEP
Dates:	Published: 15 June 2023 Accepted: 24 May 2023
Institution:	The University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Archaeology (York) The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Physics (York)
Depositing User:	Pure (York)
Date Deposited:	26 Jul 2023 09:40
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2024 00:19
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/acd863
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1088/1741-4326/acd863
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:201903

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Description: SOLPS-ITER analysis of a proposed STEP double null geometry: impact of the degree of disconnection on power-sharing

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SOLPS-ITER analysis of a proposed STEP double null geometry:Impact of the degree of disconnection on power-sharing

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