17–22 May 2026
marinaforum REGENSBURG
Europe/Berlin timezone

3.095 SONIC simulation studies of neutral-neutral collision and extended thermal force, and effects on JA DEMO detached divertor and impurity control

21 May 2026, 15:55
2h 10m
Poster J. Plasma Exhaust and Plasma Material Interactions for Fusion Reactors Postersession 3

Speaker

Dr Nobuyuki Asakura (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST))

Description

SONIC divertor code has simulated the divertor performance of power exhaust by seeding impurity (Ar) and He exhaust in the detached divertor for JA DEMO design (1.5 GW-level fusion power), where exhaust power, fuel and He particles at the core-edge boundary of 250 MW, 1x$10^{22}$ D/s and 5.3x$10^{20}$ He/s, respectively, were given [1]. Recently, NEUT2D and IMPMC codes (kinetic MC modellings for neutral and impurity transport, respectively) incorporated (i) neutral-neutral elastic collision (NNC) database [2], where collision rates and momentum exchange rates are evaluated from differential cross-section database for $D_{0}$-$D_{0}$, $D_{0}$-$D_{2}$, and $D_{2}$-$D_{2}$, and it is rather theoretical expression compared to those in EIRENE, and (ii) an extended kinetic thermal force (TF) model for the impurity transport, including a collisionality parameter and heat flux limiter in the conventional formula as a collisionality-dependent term, which expects reduction in TF in the high $T_{i,e}$ SOL and edge [3]. Effects on the divertor detachment and impurity concentrations in SOL and edge were investigated in the reference series of the JA DEMO design with similar total radiation fraction of $f_{rad}$ = $P_{rad}/P_{sep}$ ~0.8.
NNC affected distributions of neutral and molecular pressures ($P_{D0}$, $P_{D2}$) in the private and sub-divertor regions. Outer peak heat load at the divertor target ($q_{target}^{out}$, produced in attach plasma region) was reduced from 6.5 to ~4 $MW/m^{2}$ with increasing $P_{D0}$+$P_{D2}$ from 2.1 to 3.5 Pa and reducing the local $T_{e,i}^{div}$ from 35 to 10 eV. These peak-$q_{target}^{out}$ values were systematically smaller than those without NNC model since $P_{D0}$+$P_{D2}$ became larger. At the same time, comparing to result without NNC model, $D_{0}$ penetration in the sub-divertor was reduced, and $P_{D2}$ was increased by the factor of two. Extended TF-model also affected detachment in the outer divertor, which was extended to the upstream and radial directions. As a result, Ar concentration in the SOL ($c_{Ar}^{sol}$) was increased and $c_{Ar}$ inside the separatrix ($c_{Ar}^{edge}$) was increased from 0.6-0.8% to ~1%. The latter value was larger than the design reference (0.6%). $c_{He}^{sol}$ was also increased, but $c_{He}^{edge}$ was similar than the design reference (0.7%). Operation window of $f_{rad}$, $D$-gas puff rate will be investigated to satisfy requirements of the JA DEMO divertor design such as $q_{target}^{out}$, $c_{Ar}^{edge}$ and $c_{He}^{edge}$ values.
[1] N. Asakura, et al., Nucl. Mater. Energy 26 (2021), 100864.
[2] S. Tokunaga, et al., PSI22, P.3.105, May 2016, Rome, Italy.
[3] Y. Homma, et al. Nucl. Fusion 60 (2020) 046031.

Author

Dr Nobuyuki Asakura (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST))

Co-authors

Dr Daisuke Umezaki (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST)) Prof. Kazuo Hoshino (Keio University) Dr Shinsuke Tokunaga (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST)) Mr Tatsuto Yamamoto (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST)) Dr Yuki Homma (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST)) Dr Hiroyasu Utoh (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST))

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