Detachment control in KSTAR with Tungsten divertor

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gupta, Anchal, Eldon, David, Bang, Eunnam, Kwon, KyuBeen, Lee, Hyungho, Leonard, Anthony, Hwang, Junghoo, Xu, Xueqiao, Zhao, Menglong, Zhu, Ben
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Gupta, Anchal
Eldon, David
Bang, Eunnam
Kwon, KyuBeen
Lee, Hyungho
Leonard, Anthony
Hwang, Junghoo
Xu, Xueqiao
Zhao, Menglong
Zhu, Ben
author_facet Gupta, Anchal
Eldon, David
Bang, Eunnam
Kwon, KyuBeen
Lee, Hyungho
Leonard, Anthony
Hwang, Junghoo
Xu, Xueqiao
Zhao, Menglong
Zhu, Ben
contents KSTAR has recently undergone an upgrade to use a new Tungsten divertor to run experiments in ITER-relevant scenarios. Even with a high melting point of Tungsten, it is important to control the heat flux impinging on tungsten divertor targets to minimize sputtering and contamination of the core plasma. Heat flux on the divertor is often controlled by increasing the detachment of Scrape-Off Layer plasma from the target plates. In this work, we have demonstrated successful detachment control experiments using two different methods. The first method uses attachment fraction as a control variable which is estimated using ion saturation current measurements from embedded Langmuir probes in the divertor. The second method uses a novel machine-learning-based surrogate model of 2D UEDGE simulation database, DivControlNN. We demonstrated running inference operation of DivControlNN in realtime to estimate heat flux at the divertor and use it to feedback impurity gas to control the detachment level. We present interesting insights from these experiments including a systematic approach to tuning controllers and discuss future improvements in the control infrastructure and control variables for future burning plasma experiments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_07978
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Detachment control in KSTAR with Tungsten divertor
Gupta, Anchal
Eldon, David
Bang, Eunnam
Kwon, KyuBeen
Lee, Hyungho
Leonard, Anthony
Hwang, Junghoo
Xu, Xueqiao
Zhao, Menglong
Zhu, Ben
Plasma Physics
KSTAR has recently undergone an upgrade to use a new Tungsten divertor to run experiments in ITER-relevant scenarios. Even with a high melting point of Tungsten, it is important to control the heat flux impinging on tungsten divertor targets to minimize sputtering and contamination of the core plasma. Heat flux on the divertor is often controlled by increasing the detachment of Scrape-Off Layer plasma from the target plates. In this work, we have demonstrated successful detachment control experiments using two different methods. The first method uses attachment fraction as a control variable which is estimated using ion saturation current measurements from embedded Langmuir probes in the divertor. The second method uses a novel machine-learning-based surrogate model of 2D UEDGE simulation database, DivControlNN. We demonstrated running inference operation of DivControlNN in realtime to estimate heat flux at the divertor and use it to feedback impurity gas to control the detachment level. We present interesting insights from these experiments including a systematic approach to tuning controllers and discuss future improvements in the control infrastructure and control variables for future burning plasma experiments.
title Detachment control in KSTAR with Tungsten divertor
topic Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.07978