Professor P.C. Stangeby  University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies 4925 Dufferin St., Ontario, Canada M3H 5T6 Phone:   +1-416-667-7928 Fax:       +1-416-667-7799          Email:     pcs (at_sign) starfire.utias.utoronto.ca Web:       Click Here

Various types of “magnetic bottle”, such as the tokamak, have been built to contain fusion plasmas, and must be capable of retaining the deuterium and tritium ions at temperatures exceeding 100 million K. No magnetic bottle yet built achieves perfect plasma confinement and when the leaking plasma particles strike the solid walls, Plasma Surface Interactions, PSI result. The UTIAS Fusion Computer Impurity Transport Modelling Group carries out PSI studies under contract for the DIII-D (San Diego), and ITER (France) tokamak projects.

The Group’s principal experimental research focus is on DIII-D, specifically aimed at understanding the behaviour of carbon impurities released from the protective tiles on the divertor targets and the walls. The most pressing issue is the substantial tritium retention due to co-deposition with carbon predicted for ITER. In order to achieve the most readily interpreted plasma conditions, dedicated “Simple-as-Possible Plasma”, SAPP, shots are run on DIII-D for our Group. These SAPP shots are particularly heavily (edge) diagnosed and numerous repeat shots are used to maximize the quantity and quality of edge data. All of the experimental data are then brought into simultaneous comparison with output of the Group’s OEDGE code in order to adequately constrain the numerous unknowns (adjustables) in the code-model. Modelling of ITER focuses on the behaviour of beryllium, which is the material to be used to armour the main walls of ITER.