The TOKAM3X code for edge turbulence fluid simulations of tokamak plasmas in versatile magnetic geometries

The new code TOKAM3X simulates plasma turbulence in full torus geometry including the open field lines of the Scrape-off Layer (SOL) and the edge closed field lines region in the vicinity of the separatrix. Based on drift-reduced Braginskii equations, TOKAM3X is able to simulate both limited and diverted plasmas. Turbulence is flux driven by incoming particles from the core plasma and no scale separation between the equilibrium and the fluctuations is assumed so that interactions between large scale flows and turbulence are consistently treated. Based on a domain decomposition, specific numerical schemes are proposed using conservative finite-differences associated to a semi-implicit time advancement. The process computation is multi-threaded and based on MPI and OpenMP libraries. In this paper, fluid model equations are presented together with the proposed numerical methods. The code is verified using the manufactured solution technique and validated through documented simple experiments. Finally, first simulations of edge plasma turbulence in X-point geometry are also introduced in a JET geometry. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Patrick Tamain, Hugo Bufferand, Guido Ciraolo, Clothilde Colin, Davide Galassi, et al.. The TOKAM3X code for edge turbulence fluid simulations of tokamak plasmas in versatile magnetic geometries. Journal of Computational Physics, 2016, 321, pp.606-623. ⟨10.1016/j.jcp.2016.05.038⟩. ⟨hal-01461797⟩

Journal: Journal of Computational Physics

Date de publication: 01-09-2016

Auteurs:
  • Patrick Tamain
  • Hugo Bufferand
  • Guido Ciraolo
  • Clothilde Colin
  • Davide Galassi
  • Philippe Ghendrih
  • Eric Serre
  • Frédéric Schwander

Digital object identifier (doi): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.05.038

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