Low-Z impurity transport in DIII-D – observations and implications

Impurity transport studies on DIII-D have revealed transport phenomena that are qualitatively consistent with that expected from turbulence transport theory in some cases and neoclassical transport theory in other cases. The transport model proposed here, which assumes that the total impurity transport is a linear sum of turbulence-driven transport and neoclassical transport, is shown to reproduce many of these observed features. This transport model is then applied to burn condition calculations, revealing that profile effects associated with neoclassical transport have a large effect on the maximum allowable impurity fraction in machines based on achieving neoclassical transport levels.