Wall-touching kink mode calculations with the M3D code

Authors:   J.A. Breslau

Abstract:  This paper seeks to address a controversy regarding the applicability of the 3D nonlinear extended MHD code M3D [1] and similar codes to calculations of the electromagnetic interaction of a disrupting tokamak plasma with the surrounding vessel structures. M3D is applied to a simple test problem involving an external kink mode in an ideal cylindrical plasma, set out by its critics as a model case for illustrating the nature of transient vessel currents during a major disruption. While comparison of the results with those of the disruption simulation code is complicated by effects arising from the higher dimensionality and complexity of M3D, we verify that M3D is capable of reproducing both the correct saturation behavior of the free boundary kink and the Hiro currents arising when the kink interacts with a conducting tile surface interior to the ideal wall.
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Submitted to: Physics of Plasmas
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Download PPPL-5137 (pdf 3.1 MB 16pp)
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