La turbulence au sein d’un plasma contribue de manière significative à l’augmentation du transport de l’énergie et des particules. Ce transport diminue la qualité de confinement du plasma réduisant la possibilité d’atteindre le seuil de fusion. Notre travail a consisté à étudier et à mesurer l’évolution des caractéristiques de la turbulence ainsi que son rôle durant la transition d’un mode à faible confinement (L-mode) à un mode de confinement amélioré (H-mode) des plasmas du tokamak ASDEX Upgrade. Nous avons, en particulier, étudié la phase de transition intermédiaire (I-phase) où la turbulence et le cisaillement des structures turbulentes par les flux interagissent. Une des théories prévoit que la turbulence au bord du plasma est stabilisée par des gradients de champs électriques radiaux: le cisaillement de flux E×B stabilise la turbulence et diminue la taille radiale des structures. Le mécanisme physique détaillé de la formation de la barrière de transport n’est pas encore bien compris. Afin d’étudier la dynamique radiale et temporelle de la transition L-H, nous nous sommes servis d’un réflectomètre à balayage en fréquence ultra-rapide. Durant nos campagnes expérimentales nous sommes parvenus à réduire ce temps de balayage à 1 μs. La dynamique de densité électronique, du niveau de turbulence et des spectres lors des transitions L-H ont été réalisées. Les mesures montrent que le niveau des fluctuations de grande échelle diminue après une transition L-H, ce qui confirme les prédictions théoriques. La I-phase a été documentée pour diverses conditions du plasma. Enfin, ces réflectomètres ont aussi permis l’observation de modes cohérents à haute fréquence au bord du plasma / Plasma confinement is limited by energy and particle transport, in which turbulence plays an important role. In this work the measurements of the turbulence characteristics carried out on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak are presented during the transition from the Low (L) to the High (H) confinement mode which goes through an Intermediate (I) phase where turbulence and shear flows strongly interact. One of the most widely accepted theories concerning the L-H transition describes how the turbulence in the plasma edge is stabilized by radial electric field gradients: the E×B flow shear stabilizes turbulence and decreases the radial size of turbulent structures. As a consequence, a transport barrier forms in the edge where the plasma density, the temperature, and their gradients increase. The detailed physical mechanism of the formation of the transport barrier as well as the reason for the residual transport across this barrier are not yet well understood. The density dynamics is measured by an ultra-fast swept reflectometer with a time resolution as high as 1 μs. Studies of the electron density profile dynamics, the density turbulence level, radial wavenumber and frequency spectra during L-H transitions have been performed. The reflectometer measurements show that the density large scale fluctuations decrease after an L-H transition, which confirms the theoretical predictions of the turbulence reduction by sheared flows and supports previous experimental evidences. I-phases for various plasma conditions are documented and the density evolution is compared with the turbulence level. Moreover the results on high frequency coherent modes appearing at the plasma edge are presented.

Les effets auto-consistantes sont omniprésents dans les plasmas de fusion. Ils sont dus au fait que les équations de Maxwell qui décrivent l’évolution des champs électromagnétiques contiennent la densité de charge et de courant des particules.D’autre côté à son tour les trajectoires des particules sont influencés par les champs à travers les équations de mouvement ( où l’équation de Vlasov). Le résultat decette interaction auto-consistente se résume dans un effet cumulatif qui peut causer le déconfinement de plasma à l’intérieur d’une machine de fusion. Ce travail de thèse traite les problèmes liés à l’amélioration de confinement de plasma de fusion dans le cadre des approches hamiltonienne et lagrangien par le contrôle de transport turbulent et la création des barrières de transport. Les fluctuations auto-consistantes de champs électromagnétiques et de densités des particules sont à l’origine de l’apparition des instabilités de plasma qui sont à son tour liés aux phénomènes de transport. Dans la perspective de comprendre les mécanismes de la turbulence sousjacente,on considère ici l’application des méthodes hamiltoniennes pour des plasmasnon-collisionnelles / This thesis deals with dynamicla investigation of magnetically confined fusion plasmas by using Lagrangian and Hamilton formalisms. It consists of three parts. The first part is devoted to the investigation of barrier formation for the EXB drift model by means of the Hamiltonian control method. The strong magnetic field approach is relevant for magnetically confined fusion plasmas ; this is why at the first approximation one can consider the dynamics of particles driven by constant and uniform magnetic field. In this case only the electrostatic turbulence is taken into account. During this study the expressions for the control term (quadratic in perturbation amplitude) additive to the electrostatic potential, has been obtained. The effeciency of such a control for stopping turbulent diffusion has been shown analytically abd numerically. The second and the third parts of this thesis are devoted to study of self consistent phenomena in magnetized plasmas through the Maxwell-Vlasov model. In particular, the second part of this thesis treats the problem of the monumentum transport by derivation of its conservation law. the Euler-Poincare variational principle (with constrained variations) as well as Noether's theorem is apllied here. this derivation is realized in two cases : first, in electromagnetic turbulence case for the full Maxwell-Vlasov system, and then in electrostatic turbulence case for the gyrokinetic Maxwell-Vlasov system. Then the intrinsic mechanisms reponsible for the intrinsic plama rotation, that can give an important in plasma stabilization, are identified. The last part of this thesis deals with dynamicla reduction for the Maxwell-Vlaslov model. More particularly; the intrisic formulation for the guiding center model is derived. Here the term 'intrinsis" means that no fixed frame was used during its construction. Due to that not any problem related to the gyrogauge dependence of dynamics appears. The study of orbits of trapped particles is considered as one of the possible for illustration of the first step of such a dynamical reduction.

The common observation that the onset of a core MARFE (edge localized, poloidally asymmetric, highly radiating region) is followed immediately by a High-to-Low confinement mode transition in DIII-D was investigated by comparing a theoretical prediction of the threshold non-radiative power across the separatrix needed to maintain H-mode with an experimental determination of the non-radiative power flowing across the separatrix. It was found that in three shots with continuous gas fueling that the increased neutral influx associated with the MARFE formation caused a sharp increase in the predicted threshold non-radiative power crossing the separatrix that was required for the plasma to remain in H-mode to a value comparable to the experimental power crossing the separatrix, indicating a theoretical prediction of a H-L transition in agreement with experimental observation.

Divertors are in-vessel, plasma-facing, components in magnetic-confinement fusion reactors. Their main function is to remove the fusion reaction ash (α-particles), unburned fuel, and eroded particles from the reactor, which adversely affect the quality of the plasma. A significant fraction (~15 %) of the total fusion thermal power is removed by the divertor coolant and must, therefore, be recovered at elevated temperature in order to enhance the overall thermal efficiency. Helium is the leading coolant because of its high thermal conductivity, material compatibility, and suitability as a working fluid for power conversion systems using a closed high temperature Brayton cycle. Peak surface heat fluxes on the order of 10 MW/m^2 are anticipated with surface temperatures in the region of 1,200°C to 1,500°C. Recently, several helium-cooled divertor designs have been proposed, including a modular T-tube design and a modular finger configuration with jet impingement cooling from perforated end caps. Design calculations performed using the FLUENT® CFD software package have shown that these designs can accommodate a peak heat load of 10 MW/m^2. Extremely high heat transfer coefficients (~50,000 W/(m^2 K)) were predicted by these calculations. Since these values of heat transfer coefficient are considered to be outside of the experience base for gas-cooled systems, an experimental investigation has been undertaken to validate the results of the numerical simulations. Attention has been focused on the thermal performance of the T-tube and the finger divertor designs. Experimental and numerical investigations have been performed to support both divertor geometries. Excellent agreement has been obtained between the experimental data and model predictions, thereby confirming the predicted performance of the leading helium-cooled divertor designs for near- and long-term magnetic fusion reactor designs. The results of this investigation provide confidence in the ability of state-of-the-art CFD codes to model gas-cooled high heat flux plasma-facing components such as divertors.

科学研究費補助金 研究種目:一般研究(B) 課題番号:03452285 研究代表者:上杉 喜彦 研究期間:1991-1992年度