Reversed-Field eXperiment

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The Reversed Field Pinch (RFP)

It is a nuclear fusion test machine in that an asymmetric toroidal vessel confinse ionized particles by a poloidal field; this is produced by the plasma current that flows around the torus and a toroidal magnetic field which in turn is induced by currents flowing in both the plasma and external coils.

Similarity with Tokamak system

From the schematic point of view the RFX-Mod machine is similar to a Tokamak system. Both design contain a toroidal vessel containing ionized particle under a strong confinement magnetic field coupled to a coaxial transformer whose secondary coil conduct the plasma toroidal current. The configuration derives its name from the fact that the toroidal magnetic field in the outer region is reversed with respect to its direction on the axis. If the toroidal winding acts as a flux conserver, the field profile is automatically generated by raising the plasma current to a convenient level. In fact, while the current is raised, the plasma generates an additional toroidal flux in the inner part of the column and the coil reacts in order to keep the total flux constant: in the outer region the toroidal field is thereby reduced and even reversed, hence the name of the configuration. The reversal can be enhanced and controlled by the external circuits. While in a classical conductor the toroidal field in a steady state would reach, by diffusion, a uniform radial distribution, in a RFP the plasma relaxation processes maintain the configuration by a mechanism called "dynamo effect" (by analogy to theories of the earth magnetic field generation).

Difference between RFX_MOD and Tokamak machines

The most significant difference between Tokamak and RFP magnetic field configurations is that in the first case the size of the toroidal field is much larger than the poloidal field, meanwhile in the other case (RFP) these component are of the same order of magnitude; furthermore, the toroidal field reverses in the plasma outer region.

Parameters identifying RFP configuration

The pinch parameter Theta= Bpol (a)/<Btorave>;, and the reversal parameter F = Btor (a)/<Btorave>;, where Bpol (a) and Btor (a) are the poloidal and toroidal field components at the wall and <Btorave>; is the toroidal field averaged over the plasma cross-section. Taylor's theory states that, if the magnetic helicity and the toroidal flux are conserved, a plasma, with Beta= 0, spontaneously relaxes to a minimum energy force-free state described by the equation: rotB = kB where k is uniform and ka = 2 Theta., for cylindrical geometry, Bessel functions provide the solution of eq. (1) and for Theta> 1.2 the toroidal field reverses at the wall. However, it is found experimentally that RFP plasmas have finite Beta and the current density tends to vanish at the wall, i.e. k is not uniform, so that the experimental profiles depart from the theoretical one. The obtained configurations is a result of the dynamical balance of the counteracting actions of resistive diffusion and relaxation processes. The first process has the tendency to shrink the toroidal current distribution, the other induces destabilization by MHD modes. The resistive diffusion, tends to restore the previous state. As a consequence, a RFP configuration is continuously regenerated through magnetic fluctuations. The experiments carried out in the last two decades two large RFP machines (MST in Madison, Wisconsin [1] and RFX in Padova [2]) on RFP devices provided new insight of the physical phenomena taking place in magnetically confined plasma dynamics [3,4].

Related Topics

Toroidal and Poloidal coordinates Theory of plasma confinement in non-axisymmetric magnetic fields Multiscale gyrokinetics for rotating tokamak plasmas: fluctuations, transport and energy flows Gas-dynamic trap: an overview of the concept and experimental results

[1][2][3][4]

References

  1. [1] http://plasma.physics.wisc.edu/viewpage.php?id=mst
  2. [2] https://www.igi.cnr.it/?q=content/experiment-introduction
  3. [3] http://www-naweb.iaea.org/napc/physics/FEC/FEC2012/papers/451_OV52Rb.pdf
  4. [4] P. Martin et al. 2013 Nucl. Fusion 53 104018. doi:10.1088/0029-5515/53/10/104018 (September 2013,IAEA, Vienna)

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