ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
2027 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
October 31–November 4, 2027
Washington, DC|The Westin Washington, DC Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Nov 2024
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
December 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2024
Latest News
Texas-based WCS chosen to manage U.S.-generated mercury
A five-year, $17.8 million contract has been awarded to Waste Control Specialists for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced on November 21.
T. Sehmer, K. Lackner, E. Strumberger, E. Fable, O. Kardaun, P. McCarthy, ASDEX Upgrade Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 70 | Number 1 | July 2016 | Pages 73-82
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-175
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Modern tokamaks, operating with elongated plasmas, are unstable against vertical displacement. In the presence of conducting walls, this instability assumes the characteristics of a resistive wall mode (RWM), amenable to feedback stabilization. On ASDEX Upgrade (AUG), estimates of the growth rates, entering into the definition of safe operating regimes and into feedback parameter settings, were so far based on a rigid displacement (RD) model. However, for highly triangular plasmas this model was found to predict growth rates that were too small. A code package originally developed for general ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) RWMs (NEMEC/CAS3D/STARWALL) and also capable of handling three-dimensional passive stabilizing loops (PSLs) was therefore applied to the n = 0 case for a large data sample of possible AUG equilibria. The comparison with the previously used rigid vertical displacement model showed that the latter gives a consistently lower limit to the growth rates for typical AUG parameters. A statistical analysis of the RD results brings out the stabilizing effect of triangularity. This stabilizing effect disappears, however, if generalized displacements are taken into account, like in the full MHD resistive wall model. The mode acquires a strong m = 2 component, which allows it also to elude partly the stabilization by the PSL. At low elongation, large triangularity produces even significant additional destabilization, with the mode predominantly m = 2, confined to the outer plasma layers, like predicted in references [see Rosen et al., Phys. Fluids, 18, 482 (1975) and Becker and Lackner, Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, Vol. II, p. 401 (1977)]. These results explain the tendencies observed in AUG and will be taken into account in future analyses.