Acceleration Mechanism of Vertical Displacement Event and its Amelioration in Tokamak Disruptions

Vertical displacement events (VDEs), which are frequently observed in disruptive discharges of elongated tokamaks, are investigated using the Tokamak Simulation Code. We show that disruption events such as a sudden plasma pressure drop (β p collapse) and the subsequent plasma current quench (I p quench) can accelerate VDEs due to the adverse destabilizing effect of the resistive shell, which has previously been thought to stabilize VDEs. In a tokamak with a surrounding shell which is asymmetric with respect to the geometric midplane, the I p quench also causes an additional VDE acceleration due to the vertical imbalance of the attractive force. While the shell-geometry characterizes the VDE dynamics, the growth rate of VDEs depends strongly on the magnitude of the β p collapse, the speed of the I p quench and the n-index of the plasma equilibrium just before the disruption. An amelioration of I p quench-induced VDEs was experimentally established in the JT-60U tokamak by optimizing the vertical location of the plasma just prior to the disruption. The JT-60U vacuum vessel is shown to be suitable for preventing the β p collapse-induced VDE.

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