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Senior Thesis: Examination of Neoclassical Transport in the National Spherical Torus Experiment
Start Date: 3/10/2015Start Time: 12:30 PM
End Date: 3/10/2015End Time: 2:00 PM

Event Description
Matthew Parsons, physics senior, Drexel University

Neoclassical transport theory describes the motion of charged particles in non-uniform electric and magnetic fields, and as this motion of particles and energy plays a fundamental role in fusion plasmas it provides both an interesting and instructive subject to explore. The objective of this study is to make use of advanced computational tools to support the study of plasma transport in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) device operated at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Selected experimental data are used as input to the GTC-NEO particle code to study various transport properties, such as ion thermal conductivities and bootstrap currents.

The study of ion thermal conductivity presented here is an extension of previous work done on NSTX to look for a correlation between plasma collisionality and anomalous transport (S.M. Kaye et al 2013 Nucl. Fusion 53 063005). Here it is found that GTC-NEO supports the hypothesis that collisionality and anomalous ion thermal transport are inversely related, reproducing the NCLASS result. However, contrary to the NCLASS approximation, GTC-NEO shows that the conductivity merely approaches the neoclassical minimum at high collisionality rather than falling below it.

GTC-NEO was also used to determine the bootstrap current profiles for the same shots as used in the ion thermal conductivity study. A number of classic models for the bootstrap current are used to produce profiles to compare to the more rigorous GTC-NEO results to validate them for NSTX H-mode plasmas. None of the models are found to be in great agreement with the GTC-NEO result due to their lack of inclusion of finite orbit effects, though trends in their performance match predictions made about their accuracy within the limits of the appropriate plasma parameters for collisionality and magnetic geometry.
 
Advisors:
Kevin Olson, Drexel University
Stéphane Ethier, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Contact Information:
Name: Prof. Luis Cruz
Email: lrc42@drexel.edu
Location:
Disque Hall 109, S. 32nd Street and Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Audience:
  • Undergraduate Students
  • Graduate Students
  • Faculty
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