Use of the JET pedestal database to assess the role of ion temperature and plasma rotation on the discrepancy between ideal peeling-ballooning model and experimental data

Sammanfattning: Next-generation and present fusion devices such as the Joint European Torus (JET) aim for plasma operations in H-mode, a plasma regime with high confinement and low loss of energy and fuel that results from a barrier for heat and particle transport at the plasma edge, the pedestal. Due to steep gradients of the density, temperature and pressure profiles, the pedestal experiences instabilities called Edge-localized-modes (ELMs) which lead to large fluxes of heat and particles that might damage machine components. A theoretical value for the critical threshold for the pressure gradient is determined by the Peeling-Ballooning (PB) model. Although this model has been rather reliable, experiments have shown a discrepancy between the experimental pedestal pressure gradient and the critical pressure gradient determined by the model. A number of experimental gradients were significantly lower than the predicted gradients. The mechanisms responsible for this discrepancy are not fully understood yet. The present hypothesis identifies the relative shift between the positions of the temperature and density pedestals and neutral pressure as key parameters, related to input power and gas dosing among other engineering parameters. Further impact could arise from the assumption of equal ion and electron temperature and the neglecting of the plasma rotation (velocity). In order to investigate this issue more thoroughly, JET established a comprehensive database containing pedestal characteristics. As a part of this work, a software has been implemented to visualize the data since such a tool did not exist yet. The tool enables the plotting of pedestal related parameters while specific data subsets can be selected or neglected. The tool has been used to investigate the impact of ion temperature and plasma rotation on the discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental critical gradients. Hereby, many relevant parameters needed to be constrained to observe an isolated impact of ion temperature and plasma rotation. The results of this investigation support the hypothesis that mainly the relative shift affects the discrepancy between experimental and predicted pressure gradient, but that also the use of experimental ion temperature can contribute to reduce the discrepancy.