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New kinetic Landau-fluid closures, based on the cutoff Maxwellian distribution, are derived. A special static case is considered (the frequency ω=0). In the strongly collisional regime, our model reduces to Braginskii's heat flux model, and the transport is local. In the weak collisional regime, our model indicates that the heat flux is non-local and recovers the Hammett–Perkins model while the value of the cutoff velocity approaches to infinity. We compare the thermal transport coefficient χ of Maxwellian, cutoff Maxwellian and super-Gaussian distribution. The results show that the reduction of the high-speed tail particles leads to the corresponding reduction of the thermal transport coefficient χ across the entire range of collisionality, more reduction of the free streaming transport toward the weak collisional regime. In the collisionless limit, χ approaches to zero for the cutoff Maxwellian and the super-Gaussian distribution but remains finite for Maxwellian distribution. χ is complex if the cutoff Maxwellian distribution is asymmetric. The Im(χ) approaches to different convergent values in both collisionless and strongly collisional limit, respectively. It yields an additional streaming heat flux in comparison with the symmetric cutoff Maxwellian distribution. Furthermore, due to the asymmetric distribution, there is a background heat flux q0 though there is no perturbation. The derived Landau-fluid closures are general for fluid moment models, and applicable for the cutoff Maxwellian distribution in an open magnetic field line region, such as the scape-off-layer of Tokamak plasmas, in the thermal quench plasmas during a tokamak disruption, and the super-Gaussian electron distribution function due to inverse bremsstrahlung heating in laser-plasma studies.

The elm-4f simulations on ELM crash triggered by the resistive ballooning mode showed that subsequent turbulence bursts accompanied with periodic oscillations with n=0 flow appear after the pedestal collapse and enhance energy loss. In these works, however, precise analyses on the turbulence burst after the pedestal collapse is not addressed. Ii is shown that the blob like structures appear around the top region on q=2 surface at t=1040tA then propagate radially to last closed flux surface(LCFS) with clock-wise poloidal drift till t =1120tA finally, back to inner region from LCFS, resulting a burst in the neighborhood of q=2 flux surface at t=1240tA., Plasma Edge Theory Workshop / PET 2021

For the efficient and safe operation of experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), it is necessary to accurately identify and control the plasma current and its central position. In this article, neural network is used to identify the position of the plasma current center. The model trained by the basic back-propagation neural network can well match the relationship between the electromagnetic diagnostic signals and plasma current center positions. Both noisy simulation data and experimental data are applied to train and test the neural network inference model. Adding 0.1% noise to the training data is proven to improve the noise immunity of the inference model. Basic neural networks trained with both noisy simulation data and actual experimental data show good results with sufficient inputs; however, in both cases, the performance degrades significantly when only the poloidal field coil currents are given as inputs. For this kind of time-series problem, the dynamic neural network containing delay and feedback architecture is introduced, and an improved model requiring much fewer inputs is trained and tested for current center inference. Some parameters of this model are compared and analyzed in this article. With suitable neural network architecture, the mapping between the controlled variables (poloidal field coil currents) and response variables (plasma current center) can be well-established.

Both collisionless and collisional Landau fluid (LF) closure have been developed and implemented in two-fluid plasma simulation framework BOUT++, taking full advantage of the fast non-Fourier method (Dimits, 2014). The spectral range of good fit can be conveniently extended to larger domain by adding more Lorentzians. The scaling for upper limit of wavenumber resolved in collisionless LF operator and the fitting coefficients for the collisional LF operator, the later is extended to weakly collisional regime ( ν e ∗ ∼ 0 . 01 ), are presented in this paper. The flux limited expression q ∥ e FL is reduced to free streaming expression q ∥ e FS in collisionless limit and gives classical Spitzer–Harm result q ∥ e SH in collisional limit as we expected. The collisional LF closure recovers the classical Spitzer–Harm result q ∥ e SH in collisional limit and is same as the collisionless LF closure in collisionless limit. The test cases also obviously demonstrate the nonlocal effects from LF closures and responding to different boundary conditions in open surface region. This work will make it more applicable and possible to include the Landau damping kinetic effect in the fluid simulation of tokamak plasma.

A simulation study has been conducted of the physical mechanisms behind the weakly coherent mode (WCM) and its produced particle transport in the I-mode edge plasmas by using the BOUT++ code. The WCM is identified in our simulations by its poloidal and radial distributions as well as its frequency and wavenumber spectra. Its produced radial particle flux is calculated and compared with the experimental value. The good agreement indicates that the WCM is an important particle transport channel in the I-mode pedestal. It is found that the WCM can transport particles across the strong outer shear layer of the E r well established in the formation of I-mode, based on which a possible explanation is provided why I-mode does not feature a density pedestal. The key point lies in the change of the cross-phase between the electric potential and density fluctuations induced by the E × B Doppler shift. In the strong shear layer, although the electric potential fluctuation is significantly suppressed, the cross-phase is close to π/2, resulting in a strong drive of the density fluctuation and particle transport. To identify the physical nature of the WCM, a linear dispersion relation for drift Alfvén modes is derived in the slab geometry. A drift Alfvén wave instability is found to have similar dependence to the simulated linear instability behind the WCM on the resistivity and the parallel electron pressure gradient and thermal force terms in the parallel Ohm’s law.

Recently the drift-reduced Landau fluid six-field turbulence model within the BOUT++ framework has been upgraded. In particular, this new model employs a new normalization, adds a volumetric flux-driven source option, the Landau fluid closure for parallel heat flux and a Laplacian inversion solver which is able to capture n=0 axisymmetric mode evolution in realistic tokamak configurations. These improvements substantially extended model's capability to study a wider range of tokamak edge phenomena, and are essential to build a fully self-consistent edge turbulence model capable of both transient (e.g., ELM, disruption) and transport time-scale simulations., 26 pages, 14 figures

A study of a dataset of JET H-mode plasma with the Be/W ITER-like wall (JET-ILW) shows that reaching the edge MHD ballooning limit leads to confinement degradation. However, unlike JET plasmas with a carbon wall (JET-C), the JET-ILW plasmas stay in a marginal dithering phase for a relatively long period, associated with a higher (≈20%) H-mode density limit (HDL) than JET-C equivalents. This suggests that ITER could be operated in H-mode with higher density than the scaling based on carbon wall devices, but likely with a dithering phase plasma with lower confinement. A new, reliable estimator for JET E r, min has been derived by combining HRTS measurements of pedestal gradient and edge-SOL decay lengths. JET radial E r ETB wells are observed in the range of −15 to −60 kV m−1 in high performance H-modes, consistent with previous CXRS results in ASDEX Upgrade. The results imply that a higher positive E × B shear in the near SOL plays a role in sustaining a marginal phase in JET-ILW which leads to a higher HDL than that in JET-C. The results of the JET-ILW dataset show agreement with the Goldston finite collisionality HD model for SOL broadening at high collisionality. A hypothesis for the dithering H-mode phase is proposed: as n e,SOL increases, ν ∗,SOL increases, SOL broadens, E r shear decreases, triggers L-mode; n e drops, ν ∗,SOL decreases, SOL becomes narrower, and E r shear increases, triggering H-mode, resulting in a cycle of H–L–H- oscillations. For burning plasma devices, such as ITER, operating just below the MHD limit for the dithering phase could be a promising regime for maximising core density, and fusion performance while minimising plasma-material interaction. The oscillatory signal during the dithering phase could be used as a precursor of undesirable plasma performance for control purposes.

An impact of the equilibrium radial electric field on energy loss processes after pedestal collapse is numerically investigated using the BOUT++ framework. Using linear stability analysis, the resistive ballooning mode is shown to be stabilized by the radial shear of the equilibrium radial electric field. On the other hand, the energy loss level after the pedestal collapse increases if the equilibrium radial electric field is taken into account. The spatio‐temporal and phase diagram analyses show that the equilibrium radial electric field partially cancels the fluctuation‐driven toroidally axisymmetric radial electric field and weakens the E × B shearing rate after pedestal collapse, weakening the turbulence suppression by vortex shearing. The equilibrium radial electric field therefore increases turbulence intensity in nonlinear cyclic oscillations among pressure gradient, E × B shearing rate, and turbulence intensity, which gives rise to subsequent bursts of turbulent transport and increases the energy loss level.

We present a novel distributed union-find algorithm that features asynchronous parallelism and k-d tree based load balancing for scalable visualization and analysis of scientific data. Applications of union-find include level set extraction and critical point tracking, but distributed union-find can suffer from high synchronization costs and imbalanced workloads across parallel processes. In this study, we prove that global synchronizations in existing distributed union-find can be eliminated without changing final results, allowing overlapped communications and computations for scalable processing. We also use a k-d tree decomposition to redistribute inputs, in order to improve workload balancing. We benchmark the scalability of our algorithm with up to 1,024 processes using both synthetic and application data. We demonstrate the use of our algorithm in critical point tracking and super-level set extraction with high-speed imaging experiments and fusion plasma simulations, respectively., Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (IEEE TVCG Special Issue on IEEE PacificVis 2021)

Tritium self-sufficiency in future deuterium–tritium fusion reactors is a crucial challenge. As an engineering test reactor, the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor requires a burning fraction of 3% for the goal to test the accessibility to the future fusion plant. To self-consistently simulate burning plasmas with profile changes in pellet injection scenarios and to estimate the corresponding burning fraction, a one-dimensional multi-species radial transport model is developed in the BOUT++ framework. Several pellet-fueling scenarios are then tested in the model. The results show that the increased fueling depth improves the burning fraction by particle confinement improvement and fusion power increase. Nevertheless, by increasing the depth, the pellet cooling-down may significantly lower the temperature in the core region. Taking the density perturbation into consideration, the reasonable parameters of the fueling scenario in these simulations are estimated as pellet radius r p = 3 mm , injection rate = 4 Hz , and pellet injection velocity = 1000 – 2000 m s − 1 without drift or 450 m s − 1 with high-field-side drift.

Prediction of divertor heat flux width is performed for the first and the second pre-fusion power operation (PFPO) phases specified in the new ITER research plan using BOUT++ transport code (Li et al 2018 Comput. Phys. Commun. 228 69–82). The initial plasma profiles inside the separatrix are taken from CORSICA scenario studies. Transport coefficients in transport code are calculated by inverting the plasma profiles inside the separatrix and are assumed to be constants in the scrape-off-layer. An anomalous thermal diffusivity scan is performed with E × B and magnetic drifts. The results in two scenarios identifying two distinct regimes: a drift-dominant regime when diffusivity is smaller than the respective critical thermal diffusivity χ c and a turbulence-dominant regime when diffusivity is larger than it. The Goldston heuristic drift model and the ITPA multi-machine experimental scaling yield a lower limit of the width λ q . From transport simulations, we obtain the critical thermal diffusivity χ c = 0.5 m2 s−1 for the PFPO-1 scenario with toroidal magnetic field B = 1.77 T and plasma current I p = 5 MA, and χ c = 0.3 m2 s−1 for the PFPO-2 scenario with toroidal magnetic field B = 2.65 T and plasma current I p = 7.5 MA. Separatrix temperature and collisionality also have a significant impact on the heat flux width in the drift-dominant regime. The investigation clearly yields a scaling for critical thermal diffusivity χ c ∝ A 1 / 2 / ( Z 1 + Z 1 2 B p 2 ) using ITER scenarios with fixed safety factor q 95, major radius R, aspect ratio R/a, and the separatrix temperature T sep, and establishes the connection with CFETR and C-Mod discharges. This scaling implies that for a given tokamak device with q 95, R, R/a, and T sep fixed, a reduction of poloidal magnetic field by a factor of 3 leads to a 9 times higher critical value of thermal diffusivity χ c, possibly yielding a transition from turbulence- to drift-dominant regime.

The steady state radial electric field (Er) is calculated by coupling a plasma transport model with the quasi-neutrality constraint and the vorticity equation within the BOUT++ framework. Based on the experimentally measured plasma density and temperature profiles in Alcator C-Mod discharges, the effective radial particle and heat diffusivities are inferred from the set of plasma transport equations. The effective diffusivities are then extended into the scrape-off layer (SOL) to calculate the plasma density, temperature and flow profiles across the separatrix into the SOL with the electrostatic sheath boundary conditions (SBC) applied on the divertor plates. Given these diffusivities, the electric field can be calculated self-consistently across the separatrix from the vorticity equation with SBC coupled to the plasma transport equations. The sheath boundary conditions act to generate a large and positive Er in the SOL, which is consistent with experimental measurements. The effect of magnetic particle drifts is shown to play a significant role on local particle transport and Er by inducing a net particle flow in both the edge and SOL regions.

The BOUT++ six-field turbulence code is used to simulate the ITER 11.5 MA hybrid scenario and a brief comparison is made among ITER baseline, hybrid and steady-state operation (SSO) scenarios. Peeling–ballooning instabilities with different toroidal mode numbers dominate in different scenarios and consequently yield different types of ELMs. The energy loss fractions (ΔW ped/W ped) caused by unmitigated ELMs in the baseline and hybrid scenarios are large (∼2%) while the one in the SSO scenario is dramatically smaller (

A numerical model that calculates the collisional interactions between the lithium atoms from a lithium pellet and the background plasmas has been upgraded. The ion density ( N i ), electron temperature ( T e ), ion temperature ( T i ) and parallel ion velocity ( V ∥ , i ) are used to characterize the background plasmas. The lithium atom density ( N L i a ) and parallel velocity ( V ∥ , a ) of lithium atoms evolve with time. For each lithium ion, the density ( N L i n + ), temperature ( T L i n + ) and parallel velocity ( V ∥ , L i n + ) are self-consistently calculated. A C-mod lower single null equilibrium is used to generate the grid for the BOUT++ simulation. The lithium atoms can be fully ionized to L i 3 + in ∼2 μs. The rapid radial and poloidal expansion of the lithium ions are found in the simulation. After the collision interaction process, the electron temperature rapidly decreases at the pellet location; then, it rapidly poloidally expands, and the temperature at the pellet location starts to recover. The electron pressure increases at the pellet location despite the decrease in electron temperature because of the extra electrons from the lithium ionization. The ion pressure profile decreases in the pellet location due to the decrease in ion temperature.

To study the transport of Li species in the plasma with real-time Li aerosol injection on EAST, a model has been developed by reducing Braginskii's equations, and implemented in the frame of BOUT++. The simulation results show that Li atoms propagate inwards since the Li injection, and their penetration depth depends on both the local plasma conditions along their path and initial injection velocity. It is also found that Li ions accumulate rapidly in the edge, and only a small fraction of Li species can transport cross the separatrix into the core. In the poloidal direction, Li ions drift swiftly downwards along the field lines, and transport much faster at the high field side than at the low field side. The interaction between background plasma and Li species plays a critical role in determining the edge plasma profile. It is found that real-time Li injection raises the plasma density in the pedestal region and reduces the plasma temperature, just as has been observed experimentally. Keywords: BOUT++, Lithium injection, Edge plasma

A generalized linear dispersion relation of electromagnetic slab universal modes is derived, taking into account arbitrary ion charge state, electron finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects, and Debye shielding effects. As a consequence, it provides more accurate predictions and is applicable to a wider range of plasmas. We find that electron FLR effects have a weakly stabilizing effect on the slab universal instability in electron-ion plasma, while Debye shielding strongly stabilizes this instability when $\lambda_D$ approaches $\rho_i$ ($\lambda_D$ is the Debye length and $\rho_i$ is the ion gyro-radius). In particular, we examine the stability criterion for this instability in electron-positron pair plasmas, and find that the instability persists in this simplest plasma system as long as the pair plasma number density exceeds the critical value $n_c=B^2/(8\pi m_e c^2)$., Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures

A reproducible stationary high-confinement regime with small ``edge-localized modes'' (ELMs) has been achieved recently in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, which has a metal wall and low plasma rotation as projected for a fusion reactor. We have uncovered that this small ELM regime is enabled by a wide edge transport barrier (pedestal) with a low density gradient and a high density ratio between the pedestal foot and top. Nonlinear simulations reveal, for the first time, that the underlying mechanism for the observed small ELM crashes is the upper movement of the peeling boundary induced by an initial radially localized collapse in the pedestal, which stops the growth of instabilities and further collapse of the pedestal, thus providing a physics basis for mitigating ELMs in future steady-state fusion reactors.

バルーニング型不安定性に駆動されるELMにおけるn=0成分の流れと平行電流の発展と放出エネルギー量への影響を４場の簡約化MHDモデルを用いて数値的に検証した。ペデスタル崩壊時に力の釣り合いから強いシアを持つ流れが形成されるとともに圧力勾配を駆動源とする減衰振動が乱流との間に確認された。強いシアを持つ流れが圧力フィラメントを剪断して放出エネルギー量を抑制する一方で、減衰振動による圧力勾配の増大が二次的な崩壊を起こす描像が得られた, 日本物理学会第74回年次大会

In order to study the distribution and evolution of the transient heat flux on HL-2A during edge-localized-mode (ELM) bursts, the BOUT++ electromagnetic six-field two-fluid model is used to simulate the pedestal collapse under the lower single-null divertor geometry. The equilibrium profiles of HL-2A ELMy H-mode discharge No. 24 953 are adopted as the initial condition in the original case. In this case, linear analysis shows that the resistive ballooning mode (RBM) and drift-Alfven wave are unstable to this equilibrium, and RBM is the dominant instability. The evolutions of the radial heat fluxes at the outer mid-plane and heat fluxes to the inner and outer targets during the ELM event are presented. Six more equilibria are constructed based on the original case to find out the influence of the pedestal profiles on the peak electron heat flux. The results indicate that the heat flux increases with temperature and/or density, and the theoretical analysis and simulation results consistently show that the heat flux q∥e is proportional to ne0,SEPTe0,SEP32.

In this work, the kinetic Landau-fluid (LF) closure with collision and periodic boundary condition is used in the development of the deep learning (DL) surrogate model. A classical neural network, namely, feedforward neural network or sometimes termed multilayer perceptron, is constructed and trained to learn the kinetic LF closure in the static limit and arbitrary mean free path in configuration space. The preliminary relation between best hyperparameters and critical parameters for data generation is found. Compared with the numerical approach (non-Fourier method) of the LF closure, the deep learning surrogate model shows an order of magnitude of improvement in terms of accuracy. Perhaps most importantly, the surrogate model closure has been integrated for the first time with fluid simulations. Our DL-enabled fluid simulations, for the first time, give the correct Landau damping rate for a wide range of wave vectors, while the Hammett–Perkins closure cannot produce the correct damping rate. We correctly connect the collisionless Hammett–Perkins closure and collisional Braginskii closure to reproduce the intrinsic nonlocal feature of the heat flux with DL techniques. We address the most concerning error accumulation problem and find that simulations with the deep learning surrogate model are as good as, if not better than, simulations with the analytic closure in terms of long-term numerical stability in the linear Landau damping test.

A concise and transparent second order ordinary differential equation (ODE) describing the radial structure of the global geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) is analytically presented in a low-β tokamak plasma. The large-aspect-ratio and circular cross section are assumed to linearize the ideal magnetohydrodynamic equations. We show clearly how finite β-dependent terms affect the global GAM frequency and radial mode structure. A typical Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin form of solution is found for some reversed shear equilibria. For some other equilibria with lower β, even also in a reversed shear tokamak, the GAM continuum is upraised by the high order β-dependent terms so that its maximum is beyond ωG, where ωG is the classical local frequency of GAM. As a result, no self-consistent solution to the ODE can be found.

The first result of applying the machine/deep learning technique to the fluid closure problem is presented in this paper. As a start, three different types of neural networks (multilayer perceptron (MLP), convolutional neural network (CNN) and two-layer discrete Fourier transform (DFT) network) were constructed and trained to learn the well-known Hammett-Perkins Landau fluid closure in configuration space. We find that in order to train a well-preformed network, a minimum size of the training data set is needed; MLP also requires a minimum number of neurons in the hidden layers that equals the degrees of freedom in Fourier space despite the fact that training data is fed in configuration space. Out of the three models, DFT performs the best for the clean data, most likely due to the existence of the simple Fourier expression for Hammett-Perkins closure, but it is the least robust with respect to input noise. Overall, with appropriate tuning and optimization, all three neural networks are able to accurately predict the Hammett-Perkins closure and reproduce the intrinsic \textit{nonlocal} feature, suggesting a promising path to calculating more sophisticated closures with the machine/deep learning technique.

The zero frequency zonal flow (ZFZF) excitation due to the nonlinear geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) is investigated in the framework of gyro-kinetic equations, which were first investigated by Chen et al. [Europhys. Lett. 107, 15003 (2014)]. We show that after integrating over the velocity space, the first order finite orbit width (FOW) term of nonlinear GAM disappears, and hence, the second order FOW term should be taken into account to generate the ZFZF. The anisotropy of the equilibrium is also considered.

The dependence of shaping effects on the growth rate of collisionless and resistive ballooning mode (CBM/RBM) is numerically investigated. That of the drift ballooning modes (DCBM/DRBM) is also investigated by taking kinetic effects into account. Resistivity scans of linear growth rates of CBM/RBM and DCBM/DRBM in a circular geometry show that both modes have 3 branches in accordance with decreasing resistivity, fast, re- sistive and collisionless branch. The last two branches are in the edge relevant resistivity regime and are in the scope of this paper. For CBM/RBM, shaping effect on the growth rate becomes weak with increasing resistivity and the growth rate monotonically increases with decrease of the elongation and increase of the triangularity, on the other hand, the opposite tendency appears on the triangularity for DCBM, namely it weakly decreases with increase of the triangularity. This fact indicates that the inverted D-shaped equilibrium can be unstable against DCBM compared with the D-shaped equilibrium.

The magnetic configuration exhibits a strong influence on the dynamics of Edge Localized Modes (ELMs), as demonstrated in the EAST superconducting tokamak. We find that poloidal drifts play an important role in particle deposition during the ELMs, leading to a strong up/down asymmetry in the double null divertor configuration, favoring the upper divertor for normal toroidal field, B t , i.e., with the ion ∇ B drift towards the bottom, while the heat flux distribution appears to be rather uniform during ELMs. These observations are well reproduced by the boundary plasma turbulence code, BOUT++. As divertor pumping was only available at the bottom, the preferential particle flow towards the bottom divertor associated with reverse B t led to a preferred scenario for long pulse operation in EAST.

Precise delivery of mass to burning plasmas is a problem of growing interest in magnetic fusion. The answers to how much mass is necessary and sufficient can vary depending on parameters such as the type of atoms involved, the type of applications, plasma conditions, mass injector, and injection timing. Motivated by edge localized mode (ELM) control in H-mode plasmas, disruption mitigation and other applications in magnetic fusion, we report progress and new possibilities in mass delivery based on hollow pellets. Here, a hollow pellet refers to a spherical shell mass structure with a hollow core. Based on an empirical model of pellet ablation, coupled with BOUT++ simulations of ELM triggering threshold, hollow pellets are found to be attractive in comparison with solid spheres for ELM control. By using hollow pellets, it is possible to tailor mass delivery to certain regions of edge plasmas while minimizing core contamination and reducing the total amount of mass needed. We also include experimental progress in mass delivery experiments, in-situ diagnostics and hollow pellet fabrication, and emphasize new experimental possibilities for ELM control based on hollow pellets. A related application is the disruption mitigation scheme using powder encapsulated inside hollow shells. Further experiments will also help to resolve known discrepancies between theoretical predictions and experiments in using mass injection for ELM control and lead to better predictive models for ELM stability and triggering., Comment: Manuscript prepared for reviews by {\it Nuclear Fusion}, following the initial presentation in the 27th IAEA FEC, Gandhinagar, India, Oct. 22 - 27, 2018

An interplay between fluctuation driven toroidal axisymmetric flows (convective cell modes) and resistive ballooning mode turbulence after the pedestal collapse is numerically studied by a four-field reduced MHD model in the BOUT++ framework. The strong flow shear suppresses the radial transport of pressure filaments, and the pressure profile in the pedestal region is partially recovered. As a result, a secondary instability is quasilinearly excited, which yields a secondary collapse. The subsequent damped oscillation is also analyzed by phase diagram analysis.

This paper documents first work toward validation of BOUT++ nonlinear edge localized mode (ELM) simulations in X-point geometry, at experimental pedestal collisionality, against multiple diagnostic measurements of a well-characterized ELM event in DIII-D. The key to the BOUT++ simulations is the use of a hyper-resistivity model that effectively spreads the very thin current sheets that form in low collisionality nonlinear simulations, and allows for ELM driven magnetic reconnection at finite current density. Experimental ELM characterization includes multiple fast line-integrated diagnostic measurements revealing in–out divertor asymmetric response to ELMs, IRTV imaging at the divertor targets, visible emission in the divertor volume to test the extension of BOUT++ to X-point geometry, and forward modeling of new electron cyclotron emission imaging to test predictions of ELM filaments in the edge pedestal. Initial comparisons suggest optimized BOUT boundary conditions and model parameters, and show similarities between initial BOUT++ results and several measurements.

Microbial growth is an issue of concern that may cause hygienic and aesthetic problems during the transportation and usage of reclaimed water. Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) is an important parameter which determines the heterotrophic bacterial growth potential of water. Pseudomonas fluorescens P17 and Spirillum sp. NOX are widely used to measure AOC in drinking water. The AOC values of various reclaimed water samples determined by P17 and NOX were compared with those determined by the new strains isolated from reclaimed water in this study. It showed that the conventional test strains were not suitable for AOC measurement of reclaimed water in certain cases. In addition to P17 and NOX, Stenotrophomonas sp. ZJ2, Pseudomonas saponi- phila G3 and Enterobacter sp. G6, were selected as test strains for AOC measurement of reclaimed water. Key aspects of the bioassay including inoculum cell density, incubation temperature, incubation time and the pH of samples were evaluated for the newly selected test strains. Higher inoculum density (10 4 CFU$mL -1 ) and higher incubation temperature (25°C) could reduce the time required for the tests. The AOC results of various collected samples showed the advantages of the method proposed based on those five strains in evaluating the biologic stability of reclaimed water.

Recently, the stationary high confinement operations with improved pedestal conditions have been achieved in DIII-D [K. H. Burrell et al., Phys. Plasmas 23, 056103 (2016)], accompanying the spontaneous transition from the coherent edge harmonic oscillation (EHO) to the broadband MHD turbulence state by reducing the neutral beam injection torque to zero. It is highly significant for the burning plasma devices such as ITER. Simulations about the effects of E × B shear flow on the quiescent H-mode (QH-mode) are carried out using the three-field two-fluid model in the field-aligned coordinate under the BOUT++ framework. Using the shifted circular cross-section equilibriums including bootstrap current, the results demonstrate that the E × B shear flow strongly destabilizes low-n peeling modes, which are mainly driven by the gradient of parallel current in peeling-dominant cases and are sensitive to the Er shear. Adopting the much more general shape of E × B shear (ωE=Er/RBθ) profiles, the linear and nonlinear BOUT++ simulations show qualitative consistence with the experiments. The stronger shear flow shifts the most unstable mode to lower-n and narrows the mode spectrum. At the meantime, the nonlinear simulations of the QH-mode indicate that the shear flow in both co- and counter directions of diamagnetic flow has some similar effects. The nonlinear mode interaction is enhanced during the mode amplitude saturation phase. These results reveal that the fundamental physics mechanism of the QH-mode may be shear flow and are significant for understanding the mechanism of EHO and QH-mode.