Nuclear Fusion (Jan 2024)

Real-time plasma equilibrium reconstruction and shape control for the MAST Upgrade tokamak

  • H. Anand,
  • W. Wehner,
  • D. Eldon,
  • A. Welander,
  • Z. Xing,
  • A. Lvovskiy,
  • J. Barr,
  • E. Cho,
  • B. Sammuli,
  • D. Humphreys,
  • N. Eidietis,
  • A. Leonard,
  • M. Kochan,
  • C. Vincent,
  • G. McArdle,
  • G. Cunningham,
  • A. Thornton,
  • J. Harrison,
  • V. Soukhanovskii,
  • J. Lovell

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ad5c80
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 64, no. 8
p. 086051

Abstract

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Real-time magnetic control has been developed to deliver precise control of multiple plasma shape parameters for advanced divertor configurations, including double-null, Super-X, X-point target and X-divertor for the first time on the MAST Upgrade (MAST-U) spherical tokamak. Successful real-time magnetic equilibrium control of different plasma shape variables has been accomplished in the 2022–2023 MAST-U experimental campaign for the advanced MAST-U divertor configurations. Application of the MAST-U boundary reconstruction algorithm, LEMUR, is described and compared with off-line equilibrium reconstruction and diagnostic measurements. The process of design and verification of the axisymmetric magnetic control schemes using a suite of control analysis tools (known collectively as TokSys) is also described.

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