The scaling of fuel recovered following un-mitigated disruptions in Alcator C-Mod with high-Z PFCs

The retention of fuel in plasma facing components (PFCs) is important for the viability of fusion – both in terms of economics and safety. This study shows that a single, un-mitigated, disruption can remove >30× more fuel than that retained in a single, 1s, C-Mod discharge with molybdenum and tun...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of nuclear materials 2011-08, Vol.415 (1), p.S813-S816
Main Authors: Lipschultz, B., Whyte, D.G., Granetz, R.S., Loarte, A., Reinke, M.L., Wolfe, S.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Controled nuclear fusion plants
Energy
Energy. Thermal use of fuels
Exact sciences and technology
Fission nuclear power plants
Fuels
Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy
Nuclear fuels
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The retention of fuel in plasma facing components (PFCs) is important for the viability of fusion – both in terms of economics and safety. This study shows that a single, un-mitigated, disruption can remove >30× more fuel than that retained in a single, 1s, C-Mod discharge with molybdenum and tungsten PFCs. The fuel is recovered due to heating of the near-surface (∼100μm) during the thermal and current quench periods of the disruption. A regression analysis of full-current disruptions in a dataset of 3200 discharges leads to a scaling of fuel recovered approximately proportional to WTH1×WMAG2 where WTH and WMAG are the thermal and poloidal magnetic energy inside the vessel respectively. Scaling by surface area and disruption time scales to ITER indicate 5–10MA plasmas with low thermal energy (e.g. during current rampdown) may be ideal for removing fuel from plasma-wetted surfaces.
ISSN:0022-3115
1873-4820
DOI:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2010.10.008