Fast Plasma Shutdowns Obtained With Massive Hydrogenic, Noble and Mixed-Gas Injection in DIII-D

Massive gas injection (MGI) experiments with H{sub 2}, D{sub 2}, He, Ne and Ar and 'mixed' (H{sub 2} + Ar and D{sub 2} + Ne) gases injected into 'ITER-similar' 1.3-MA H-mode plasmas are described. Gas species, injected quantity Q, delivery time, t{sub inj}, rate-of-rise and intrinsic and added impurities are found to affect the attributes and 'disruption mitigation' efficacies of the resulting fast plasma shutdowns. With sufficient Q and t{sub inj} < {approx}2 ms, all species provide fast (within {le} {approx}3 ms), more-or-less uniform radiative dissipation of the 0.7-MJ plasma thermal energy and fast but benign current decays with reduced vacuum vessel vertical force impulse. With pure and mixed low-Z gases, free-electron densities up to 2 x 10{sup 21} m{sup -3} are obtained. While these densities are high relative to normal tokamak densities, they are still an order of magnitude smaller than the densities required for unconditional mitigation of the runaway electron avalanche process. Key information relevant to the design of effective MGI systems for larger tokamaks and ITER has been obtained and the collective species and Q-variation data provides a rich basis for validation of emerging 2D + t MHD/transport/radiation models.