We present a comparison study of 3-D pressureless resistive MHD (rMHD) and 3-D presureless two-fluid MHD models of the Helicity Injected Torus with Steady Inductive helicity injection (HIT-SI). HIT-SI is a current drive experiment that uses two geometrically asymmetric helicity injectors to generate and sustain toroidal plasmas. The comparable size of the collisionless ion skin depth d i to the resistive skin depth predicates the importance of the Hall term for HIT-SI. The simulations are run with NIMROD, an initial-value, 3-D extended MHD code. The modeled plasma density and temperature are assumed uniform and constant. The helicity injectors are modeled as oscillating normal magnetic and parallel electric field boundary conditions. The simulations use parameters that closely match those of the experiment. The simulation output is compared to the formation time, plasma current, and internal and surface magnetic fields. Results of the study indicate 2fl-MHD shows quantitative agreement with the experiment while rMHD only captures the qualitative features. The validity of each model is assessed based on how accurately it reproduces the global quantities as well as the temporal and spatial dependence of the measured magnetic fields. 2fl-MHD produces the current amplification I tor I inj and formation time s f demonstrated by HIT-SI with similar internal magnetic fields. rMHD underestimates I tor I inj and exhibits much a longer s f . Biorthogonal decomposition (BD), a powerful mathematical tool for reducing large data sets, is employed to quantify how well the simulations reproduce the measured surface magnetic fields without resorting to a probe-by-probe comparison. BD shows that 2fl-MHD captures the dominant surface magnetic structures and the temporal behavior of these features better than rMHD. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.

DIII-D has recently demonstrated improved energy confinement by injecting neutral deuterium gas into high performance near-double null divertor (DND) plasmas during high power operation. Representative parameters for these plasmas are: q 95 = 6, P IN up to 15 MW, H 98 = 1.4-1.8, and β N = 2.5-4.0. The ion B × ∇B direction is away from the primary X-point. While plasma conditions at lower to moderate power input (e.g. ⩽11 MW) are shown to be favorable to successful puff-and-pump radiating divertor applications, particularly when using argon seeds, plasma behavior at higher powers (e.g. ⩾14 MW) may make successful puff-and-pump operation more problematic. In contrast to lower powered high performance plasmas, both τ E and β N in the high power cases (⩾14 MW) increased and ELM frequency decreased, as density was raised by deuterium gas injection. Improved performance in the higher power plasmas was tied to higher pedestal pressure, which according to peelingballooning mode stability analysis using the ELITE code could increase with density along the kink/peeling stability threshold, while the pedestal pressure gradient in the lower power discharges were limited by the ballooning threshold. This resulted in improved fueling efficiency and ≈10% higher τ E and β N than is normally observed in comparable high performance plasmas on DIII-D. Applying the puff-and-pump radiating divertor approach at moderate versus high power input is shown to result in a much different evolution in core and pedestal plasma behavior. We find that injecting deuterium gas into these highly powered DND plasmas may open up a new avenue for achieving elevated plasma performance, including better fueling, but the resulting higher density may also complicate application of a radiating divertor approach to heat flux reduction in present-day tokamaks, if scenarios involving second-harmonic electron cyclotron heating are used.

A mechanism for steady inductive helicity injection (SIHI) current drive has been discovered where the current driving fluctuations are not generated by the plasma but rather are imposed by the injectors. Sheared flow of the electron fluid distorts the imposed fluctuations to drive current. The model accurately predicts the time dependent toroidal current, the injector impedance scaling, and the profile produced in the HIT-SI experiment. These results show that a stable equilibrium can be efficiently sustained with imposed fluctuations and the current profile can, in principle, be controlled. Both are large steps for controlled fusion. Some of the effects of the fluctuations on the confinement of tokamak and spheromak reactors are assessed and the degradation may be tolerable. The mechanism is also of interest to plasma self-organization, fast reconnection and plasma physics in general.

Increasing the helicity injector drive frequency up to 68.5 kHz on the Helicity Injected Torus-Steady Inductive (HIT-SI) experiment has produced spheromaks with current amplifications of 3.8, ideal n = 1 kink stability, improved toroidal symmetry and pressure confinement. Current centroid calculations from surface magnetic probes show an outward shift in the magnetic field at frequencies above 50 kHz. Grad-Shafranov equilibria indicate pressure confinement at higher injector operating frequencies. The minimum characteristic frequency needed to achieve this confining effect on HIT-SI plasmas is found to be approximately 30 kHz by analysis of the density fluctuations.

An engineering upgrade to the neutral beam system at the DIII-D tokamak [J. L. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)] enables time-dependent programming of the beam voltage and current. Initial application of this capability involves pre-programmed beam voltage and current injected into plasmas that are known to be susceptible to instabilities that are driven by energetic (E≥40 keV) beam ions. These instabilities, here all Alfvén eigenmodes (AEs), increase the transport of the beam ions beyond a classical expectation based on particle drifts and collisions. Injecting neutral beam power, Pbeam≥2 MW, at reduced voltage with increased current reduces the drive for Alfvénic instabilities and results in improved ion confinement. In lower-confinement plasmas, this technique is applied to eliminate the presence of AEs across the mid-radius of the plasmas. Simulations of those plasmas indicate that the mode drive is decreased and the radial extent of the remaining modes is reduced compared to a higher beam voltage case. In higher-confinement plasmas, this technique reduces AE activity in the far edge and results in an interesting scenario of beam current drive improving as the beam voltage reduces from 80 kV to 65 kV.