Iterative Axisymmetric Identification Algorithm (IAIA) for real-time reconstruction of the plasma boundary of ITER

• Published in: Fusion engineering and design 2013-10, Vol.88 (6-8), p.1150-1155
• Main Authors: Bettini, Paolo, Cenedese, Angelo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Approximation; Boundaries; Boundary reconstruction; Computation; Equivalence; Equivalent currents; Filaments; ITER; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Real-time; Reconstruction
• ISSN: 0920-3796; 1873-7196
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2012.11.018

► A new plasma boundary reconstruction procedure is presented. ► The plasma is approximated with equivalent currents which are computed iteratively. ► The procedure allows to describe a wide variety of plasma current distributions. ► The proposed code has been validated against both diverted and limiter ITER configurations. A new boundary reconstruction procedure is presented and validated against ITER nominal equilibria. An approximation of the plasma with an equivalent filamentary current model is employed, which is computed iteratively and allows to describe a wide variety of plasma current distributions (from the peaked ones, to the pedestal current ones). One of the specific features of the procedure is how the filaments are switched on and how the total current is distributed over the entire set, being the filaments independently considered: this allows more degrees of freedom to the model to adapt to particular current distributions, yielding better performances with a negligible additional computational burden. The code also implements a special points search making it well suited for both diverted (be they top or bottom x-point) and limiter configurations. In addition also the reconstruction in presence of noise has been explored.