Formation of a long-lived hot field reversed configuration by dynamically merging two colliding high-ß compact toroids

Year: 2011

Authors: Guo H.Y., Binderbauer M.W., Barnes D., Putvinski S., Rostoker N., Sevier L., Tuszewski M., Anderson M.G., Andow R., Bonelli L., Brandi F., Brown R., Bui D.Q., Bystritskii V., Ceccherini F., Clary R., Cheung A.H., Conroy K.D., Deng B.H., Dettrick S.A., Douglass J.D., Feng P., Galeotti L., Garate E., Giammanco F., Glass F.J., Gornostaeva O., Gota H., Gupta D., Gupta S., Kinley J.S., Knapp K., Korepanov S., Hollins M., Isakov I., Jose V.A., Li X.L., Luo Y., Marsili P., Mendoza R., Meekins M., Mok Y., Necas A., Paganini E., Pegoraro F., Pousa-Hijos R., Primavera S., Ruskov E., Qerushi A., Schmitz L., Schroeder J.H., Sibley A., Smirnov A., Song Y., Steinhauer L.C., Sun X., Thompson M.C., Van Drie A.D., Walters J.K., Wyman M.D.

Autors Affiliation: Tri Alpha Energy, Inc., P.O. Box 7010, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688, United States;
Department of Physics, University of Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, 56127 Pisa, Italy;
Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, United States;
Redmond Plasma Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, Redmond, WA 98052, United States

Abstract: A high temperature field reversed configuration (FRC) has been produced in the newly built, world\’s largest compact toroid (CT) facility, C-2, by colliding and merging two high-beta CTs produced using the advanced field-reversed theta-pinch technology. This long-lived, stable merged state exhibits the following key properties: (1) apparent increase in the poloidal flux from the first pass to the final merged state, (2) significantly improved confinement compared to conventional theta-pinch FRCs with flux decay rates approaching classical values in some cases, (3) strong conversion from kinetic energy into thermal energy with total temperature (T(e)+T(i)) exceeding 0.5 keV, predominantly into the ion channel. Detailed modeling using a new 2-D resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code, LamyRidge, has demonstrated, for the first time, the formation, translation, and merging/reconnection dynamics of such extremely high-beta plasmas.

Journal/Review: PHYSICS OF PLASMAS

Volume: 18 (5)      Pages from: 056110-1  to: 056110-10

More Information: Conference: 52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Location: Chicago, IL – Date: 2010
KeyWords:
DOI: 10.1063/1.3574380

Citations: 57
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