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Non-linear magnetohydrodynamic simulations of pellet-triggered edge-localized modes (ELMs) in JET plasma have been carried out with the JOREK code. The pellet particle fuelling efficiency and the power flux at the divertor target during the pellet-triggered ELM have been studied. The pellet injection in unstable plasma delivers the particle fuelling but the pellet fuelling rate is smaller than the rate of particle loss during the pellet triggered ELM. The JOREK simulations estimate the power flux at the divertor target and found good agreement with the experimental observation. The energy deposition of the pellet triggered ELM shows a toroidally asymmetric profile. However, and due to this toroidal asymmetry, this effect cannot be captured by the existing layout of the divertor infra-red (IR) cameras available in JET. This work highlights the benefit of having a larger number of IR cameras to analyse the heat flux for the experiments which are assumed to be toroidally asymmetric, such as the pellet and/or gas injection experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2015–2016 JET campaigns, many efforts have been devoted to the exploration of high-performance plasma scenarios envisaged for DT operation in JET. In this paper, we review various key recent hybrid discharges and model the combined ICRF+NBI heating. These deuterium discharges with deuterium beams had the ICRF antenna frequency tuned to match the cyclotron frequency of minority H at the centre of the tokamak coinciding with the second harmonic cyclotron resonance of D. The modelling takes into account the synergy between ICRF and NBI heating through the second harmonic cyclotron resonance of D beam ions, allowing us to assess its impact on the neutron rate RNT. For discharges carried out with a fixed ICRF antenna frequency and changing toroidal magnetic field to vary the resonance position, we evaluate the influence of the resonance position on the heating performance and central impurity control. The H concentration is varied between discharges in order to test its role in the heating performance. It is found that discharges with a resonance beyond  ∼0.15 m from the magnetic axis R0 suffer from MHD activity and impurity accumulation in these plasma conditions. According to our modelling, the ICRF enhancement of RNT increases with the ICRF power absorbed by deuterons as the H concentration decreases. We find that in the recent hybrid discharges, this ICRF enhancement varies due to a variation of H concentration and is in the range of 10%–25%. The modelling of a recent record high-performance hybrid discharge shows that ICRF fusion yield enhancement of  ∼30% and  ∼15% respectively can be achieved in the ramp-up phase and during the main heating phase. We extrapolate the results to DT and find that the best performing hybrid discharges correspond to an equivalent fusion power of  ∼7.0 MW in DT. Finally, an optimization analysis of the bulk ion heating for the DT scenario reveals around 15%–20% larger bulk ion heating for the 3He minority scenario as compared to the H minority scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burning plasmas with 500 MW of fusion power on ITER will rely on partially detached divertor operation to keep target heat loads at manageable levels. Such divertor regimes will be maintained by a real-time control system using the seeding of radiative impurities like nitrogen (N), neon or argon as actuator and one or more diagnostic signals as sensors. Recently, real-time control of divertor detachment has been successfully achieved in Type I ELMy H-mode JET-ITER-like wall discharges by using saturation current (Isat) measurements from divertor Langmuir probes as feedback signals to control the level of N seeding. The degree of divertor detachment is calculated in real-time by comparing the outer target peak Isat measurements to the peak Isat value at the roll-over in order to control the opening of the N injection valve. Real-time control of detachment has been achieved in both fixed and swept strike point experiments. The system has been progressively improved and can now automatically drive the divertor conditions from attached through high recycling and roll-over down to a user-defined level of detachment. Such a demonstration is a successful proof of principle in the context of future operation on ITER which will be extensively equipped with divertor target probes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel technique for sawteeth control in tokamak plasmas using ion-cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) has been developed in the JET-ILW tokamak. Unlike previous ICRH methods, that explored the destabilization of the internal kink mode when the radio-frequency (RF) wave absorption was placed near the q  =  1 surface, the technique presented here consists of stabilizing the sawteeth as fast as possible by applying the ICRH power centrally and subsequently induce a sawtooth crash by switching it off at the appropriate instant. The validation of this method in JET-ILW L-mode discharges, including preliminary tests in H-mode plasmas, is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In tokamak plasmas, the sawtooth oscillation (ST) and the edge-localized-mode (ELM) are characterized by a phase of a slow evolution of the plasma conditions, followed by a crash-like instability that resets the plasma conditions when certain criteria of the plasma conditions are satisfied. Typically, the crashes induce losses of heat and energetic particles and may also trigger secondary instabilities. As the amplitude of the crash-like perturbation scales with the period between two crashes, period control of these oscillations is important for operations of large fusion facilities such as ITER and DEMO. In several present-day experimental facilities, a pacing control algorithm has been successfully applied for controlling the sawtooth period and the ELM period. However, a formal analysis has been lacking so far, which therefore forms the objective of the present paper. For this purpose, a reset model for the sawtooth period is introduced and, after a proper transformation a nonlinear discrete-time system is obtained, which is used for the formal analysis of pacing control. By representing the model in a Lur’e (or Lurie) form, we can derive conditions under which global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop (pacing) period control system is guaranteed. Moreover, we will show that the controller exhibits inherent robustness for model uncertainties. We envision that the analytical results in the area of pacing control of the sawtooth are also applicable to pacing period control of the ELM oscillation period. The presented reset model also explains why in recent experiments the sawtooth period locks with a periodically modulated power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELMs and Sawteeth, located in different parts of the plasma, are similar from a control engineering point of view. Both manifest themselves through quiescent periods interrupted by periodic collapses. For both, large collapses, following long quiescent periods, have detrimental effects while short periods are associated with decreased confinement. Following the installation of the all metal ‘ITER like wall’ on JET, sawteeth and ELMs also play an important role by expelling tungsten from the core and edge of the plasma respectively. Control of tungsten has therefore been added to divertor heat load reduction, NTM avoidance and helium ash removal as reasons for requiring ELM and sawtooth control. It is therefore of interest to implement control systems to maintain the sawtooth and ELM frequencies in the desired ranges. On JET, ELM frequency control uses radial field ‘kicks’ and pellet and gas injection as actuators, while sawtooth control uses ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH). JET experiments have, for the first time, established feedback control of the ELM frequency, via real time variation of the injected gas flow [1]. Using this controller in conjunction with pellet injection allows the ELM frequency to be kept as required despite variations in pellet ELM triggering efficiency. JET Sawtooth control experiments have, for the first time, demonstrated that low field side ICRH, as foreseen for ITER, can shorten sawteeth lengthened by central fast ions [2]. The development of ELM and sawtooth control could be key to achieve stable high performance JET discharges with minimal tungsten content. Integrating such schemes into an overall control strategy will be required in future tokamaks and gaining experience on current tokamaks is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edge localised mode (ELM) control may be essential to develop ITER scenarios with a reasonable lifetime of divertor components, whilst ELM pacing may be essential to develop stationary ITER scenarios with a tungsten divertor. Resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) have mitigated ELMs in high collisionality plasmas in JET. The efficacy of RMPs in mitigating the ELMs is found to depend on plasma shaping, with the change in magnetic boundary achieved when non-axisymmetric fields are applied facilitating access to small ELM regimes. The understanding of ELM pacing by vertical kicks or pellets has also been improved in a range of pedestal conditions in JET (–1.3 keV) encompassing the ITER-expected domain (–2.4, H98(y, 2)  =  0.8–1.2, ). ELM triggering is reliable provided the perturbation is above a threshold which depends on pedestal parameters. ELM triggering is achieved even in the first 10% of the natural ELM cycle suggesting no inherent maximum frequency. At high normalised pressure, the peeling-ballooning modes are stabilised as predicted by ELITE, necessitating a larger perturbation from either kicks or pellets in order to trigger ELMs. Both kicks and pellets have been used to pace ELMs for tungsten flushing. This has allowed stationary plasma conditions with low gas injection in plasmas where the natural ELM frequency is such that it would normally preclude stationary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the first development and implementation of a closed loop edge localized mode (ELM) frequency controller using gas injection as the actuator. The controller has been extensively used in recent experiments on JET and it has proved to work well at ELM frequencies in the 15–40 Hz range. The controller responds effectively to a variety of disturbances, generally recovering the requested ELM frequency within approximately 500 ms. Controlling the ELM frequency has become of prime importance in the new JET configuration with all metal walls, where insufficient ELM frequency is associated with excessive tungsten influx. The controller has allowed successful operation near the minimum acceptable ELM frequency where the best plasma confinement can be achieved. Use of the ELM frequency controller in conjunction with pellet injection has enabled investigations of ELM triggering by pellets while maintaining the desired ELM frequency even when pellets fail to trigger ELMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New experiments at JET with the ITER-like wall show for the first time that ITER-relevant low field side resonance first harmonic ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) can be used to control sawteeth that have been initially lengthened by fast particles. In contrast to previous (Graves et al 2012 Nat. Commun.3 624) high field side resonance sawtooth control experiments undertaken at JET, it is found that the sawteeth of L-mode plasmas can be controlled with less accurate alignment between the resonance layer and the sawtooth inversion radius. This advantage, as well as the discovery that sawteeth can be shortened with various antenna phasings, including dipole, indicates that ICRH is a particularly effective and versatile tool that can be used in future fusion machines for controlling sawteeth. Without sawtooth control, neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) and locked modes were triggered at very low normalised beta. High power H-mode experiments show the extent to which ICRH can be tuned to control sawteeth and NTMs while simultaneously providing effective electron heating with improved flushing of high Z core impurities. Dedicated ICRH simulations using SELFO, SCENIC and EVE, including wide drift orbit effects, explain why sawtooth control is effective with various antenna phasings and show that the sawtooth control mechanism cannot be explained by enhancement of the magnetic shear. Hybrid kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic stability calculations using MISHKA and HAGIS unravel the optimal sawtooth control regimes in these ITER relevant plasma conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]