MHD simulations with resistive wall and magnetic separatrix Original Research Article

A number of problems in resistive MHD magnetic fusion simulations describe plasmas with three regions: the core, the halo region, and the resistive boundary. Treating these problems requires maintenance of an adequate resistivity contrast between the core and halo. This can be helped by the presence of a magnetic separatrix, which in any case is required for reasons of realistic modeling. An appropriate mesh generation capability is also needed to include the halo region when a separatrix is present. Finally a resistive wall boundary condition is required, to allow both two dimensional and three dimensional magnetic perturbations to penetrate the wall. Preliminary work is presented on halo current simulations in ITER. The first step is the study of VDE (vertical displacement event) instabilities. The growth rate is consistent with scaling inversely proportional to the resistive wall penetration time. The simulations have resistivity proportional to the −3/2 power of the temperature. Simulations have been done with resistivity contrast between the plasma core and wall of 1000 times, to model the vacuum region between the core and resistive shell. Some 3D simulations are shown of disruptions competing with VDEs. Toroidal peaking factors are up to about 3.