Beryllium limiter marker tiles were exposed to plasma in the Joint European Torus to diagnose the erosion of main chamber wall materials. A limiter marker tile consists of a beryllium coating layer (7-9 mu m) on the top of bulk beryllium, with a nickel interlayer (2-3 mu m) between them. The thickness variation of the beryllium coating layer, after exposure to plasma, could indicate the erosion measured by ion beam analysis with backscattering spectrometry. However, interpretations from broad beam backscattering spectra were limited by the non-uniform surface structures. Therefore, micro-ion beam analysis (mu-IBA) with 3 MeV proton beam for Elastic back scattering spectrometry (EBS) and PIXE was used to scan samples. The spot size was in the range of 3-10 mu m. Scanned areas were analysed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as well. Combining results from mu-IBA and SEM, we obtained local spectra from carefully chosen areas on which the surface structures were relatively uniform. Local spectra suggested that the scanned area (approximate to 600 mu m x 1200 mu m) contained regions with serious erosion with only 2-3 mu m coating beryllium left, regions with intact marker tile, and droplets with 90% beryllium. The nonuniform erosion, droplets mainly formed by beryllium, and the possible mixture of beryllium and nickel were the major reasons that confused interpretation from broad beam EBS.

A set of quartz crystal microbalances (QMB) was used at JET with full carbon wall to monitor mass erosion/deposition rates in the remote areas of the divertor. After introduction of the ITER- like wall (ILW) in JET with beryllium main wall and tungsten divertor, strong reduction of the material deposition and accompanied fuel retention was observed. Therefore the existing QMB electronics have been modified to improve the accuracy of frequency measurements by a factor of ten down to 0.1 Hz which corresponds to 1.4 ng cm−2. The averaged deposition rates of 1.2–3 ng cm−2 s−1 and erosion rates of 5.6–8.1 ng cm−2 s−1 were observed in the inner divertor of JET -ILW with the inner strike point positions close to the bottom edge of vertical tile 3 and at the horizontal tile 4 respectively. The erosion with averaged rates of ≈2.1 ng cm−2 s−1 and ≈120 ng cm−2 s−1 were observed in the outer divertor for the outer strike point positions at tile 5 and tile 6 respectively.

The assessment of the Shutdown Dose Rate (SDR) due to neutron activation is a major safety issue for fusion devices and in the last decade several benchmark experiments have been conducted at JET during Deuterium-Deuterium experiments for the validation of the numerical tools used in ITER nuclear analyses. The future Deuterium-Tritium campaign at JET (DTE2) will provide a unique opportunity to validate the codes under ITER-relevant conditions through the comparison between numerical predictions and measured quantities (C/E). For this purpose, a novel SDR experiment, described in the present work, is in preparation in the frame of the WPJET3-NEXP subproject within EUROfusion Consortium. The experimental setup has been accurately designed to reduce measurement uncertainties; spherical air-vented ionization chambers (ICs) will be used for on-line ex-vessel decay gamma dose measurements during JET shutdown following DT operations and activation foils have been selected for measuring the neutron fluence near ICs during operations. Active dosimeters (based on ICs) have been calibrated over a broad energy range (from about 30 keV to 1.3 MeV) with X and gamma reference beam qualities. Neutron irradiation tests confirmed the capability of active dosimeters of performing on-line decay gamma dose rate measurements, to follow gamma dose decay at the end of neutron irradiation as well as insignificant activation of the ICs. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

In this work we present a method to evaluate the neutron response function of an NE213 liquid scintillator. This method is particularly useful when the proton light yield function of the detector has not been measured, since it is based on a proton light yield function taken from literature, MCNPX simulations, measurements of gammarays from a calibration source and measurements of neutrons from fusion experiments with ohmic plasmas. The inclusion of the latter improves the description of the proton light yield function in the energy range of interest (around 2.46 MeV).We apply this method to an NE213 detector installed at JET, inside the radiation shielding of the magnetic proton recoil (MPRu) spectrometer, and present the results from the calibration along with some examples of application of the response function to perform neutron emission spectroscopy (NES) of fusion plasmas.We also investigate how the choice of the proton light yield function affects the NES analysis, finding that the result does not change significantly. This points to the fact that the method for the evaluation of the neutron response function is robust and gives reliable results. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Future tokamak reactors of conventional design will require high levels of exhaust power dissipation (more than 90% of the input power) if power densities at the divertor targets are to remain compatible with active cooling. Impurity seeded H-mode discharges in JET-ITER-like Wall (ILW) have reached a maximum radiative fraction (Frad) of ∼75%. Divertor Langmuir probe (LP) measurements in these discharges indicate, however, that less than ∼3% of the thermal plasma power reaches the targets, suggesting a missing channel for power loss. This paper presents experimental evidence from limiter LP for enhanced cross-field particle fluxes on the main chamber walls at high Frad. In H-mode nitrogen-seeded discharges with Frad increasing from ∼30% to up to ∼75%, the main chamber wall particle fluence rises by a factor ∼3 while the divertor plasma fluence drops by one order of magnitude. Contribution of main chamber wall particle losses to detachment, as suggested by EDGE2D-EIRENE modeling, is not sufficient to explain the magnitude of the observed divertor fluence reduction. An intermediate detached case obtained at Frad ∼ 60% with neon seeding is also presented. Heat loads were measured using the main chamber wall thermocouples. Comparison between thermocouple and bolometry measurements shows that the fraction of the input power transported to the main chamber wall remains below ∼5%, whatever the divertor detachment state is. Main chamber sputtering of beryllium by deuterium is reduced in detached conditions only on the low field side. If the fraction of power exhaust dissipated to the main chamber wall by cross-field transport in future reactors is similar to the JET-ILW levels, wall plasma power loading should not be an issue. However, other contributions such as charge exchange may be a problem.

Understanding the impact of isotope mass and divertor configuration on the divertor conditions and neutral pressures is critical for predicting the performance of the ITER divertor in DT operation. To address this need, ohmically heated hydrogen and deuterium plasma experiments were conducted in JET with the ITER-like wall in varying divertor configurations. In this study, these plasmas are simulated with EDGE2D-EIRENE outfitted with a sub-divertor model, to predict the neutral pressures in the plenum with similar fashion to the experiments. EDGE2D-EIRENE predictions show that the increased isotope mass results in up to a 25% increase in peak electron densities and 15% increase in peak ion saturation current at the outer target in deuterium when compared to hydrogen for all horizontal divertor configurations. Indicating that a change from hydrogen to deuterium as main fuel decreases the neutral mean free path, leading to higher neutral density in the divertor. Consequently, this mechanism also leads to higher neutral pressures in the sub-divertor. The experimental data provided by the hydrogen and deuterium ohmic discharges shows that closer proximity of the outer strike point to the pumping plenum results in a higher neutral pressure in the sub-divertor. The diaphragm capacitance gauge pressure measurements show that a two to three-fold increase in sub-divertor pressure was achieved in the corner and nearby horizontal configurations compared to the far-horizontal configurations, likely due to ballistic transport (with respect to the plasma facing components) of the neutrals into the sub-divertor. The corner divertor configuration also indicates that a neutral expansion occurs during detachment, resulting in a sub-divertor neutral density plateau as a function of upstream density at the outer-mid plane. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

A novel technique for sawteeth control in tokamak plasmas using ion-cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) has been developed in the JET-ILW tokamak. Unlike previous ICRH methods, that explored the destabilization of the internal kink mode when the radio-frequency (RF) wave absorption was placed near the q = 1 surface, the technique presented here consists of stabilizing the sawteeth as fast as possible by applying the ICRH power centrally and subsequently induce a sawtooth crash by switching it off at the appropriate instant. The validation of this method in JET-ILW L-mode discharges, including preliminary tests in H-mode plasmas, is presented.

Beryllium film deposition was studied with cavity samples in remote areas of the inner and outer JET divertor and below divertor tile 5 during the 2011-2012 campaign with the ITER-like wall. Predominantly beryllium films were formed inside the cavities with some additional carbon, the ratio Be/C was > 2. These deposited layers had high D/(Be+C) ratios of about 0.3. The formation of these films is mainly due to sticking of beryllium-containing particles with low sticking coefficients < 0.5. The observed surface loss probabilities depend on the position in the divertor. The particles responsible for film deposition originated from the location of in the divertor strike points. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd.

Robust power exhaust schemes employing impurity seeding are needed for target operational scenarios in present day tokamak devices with metallic plasma-facing components (PFCs). For an electricity-producing fusion power plant at power density Psep/R>15MW/m divertor detachment is a requirement for heat load mitigation. 2D plasma edge transport codes like the SOLPS code as well as plasma-wall interaction (PWI) codes are key to disentangle relevant physical processes in power and particle exhaust. With increased quantitative credibility in such codes more realistic and physically sound estimates of the life-time expectations and performance of metallic PFCs can be accomplished for divertor conditions relevant for ITER and DEMO. An overview is given on the recent progress of plasma edge and PWI modelling activities for (carbon-free) metallic devices, that include results from JET with the ITER-like wall, ASDEX Upgrade and Alcator C-mod. It is observed that metallic devices offer an opportunity to progress the understanding of underlying plasma physics processes in the edge. The validation of models can be substantially improved by eliminating carbon from the experiment as well as from the numerical system with reduced degrees of freedom as no chemical sputtering from amorphous carbon layers and no carbon or hydro-carbon transport are present. With the absence of carbon as the primary plasma impurity and given the fact that the physics of the PWI at metallic walls is less complex it is possible to isolate the crucial plasma physics processes relevant for particle and power exhaust. For a reliable 2D dissipative plasma exhaust model these are: cross-field drifts, complete kinetic neutral physics, geometry effects (including main-chamber, divertor and sub-divertor structures), SOL transport reflecting also the non-diffusive nature of anomalous transport, as well as transport within the pedestal region in case of significant edge impurity radiation affecting pedestal pressure and hence Psep.

The Neutron Camera (NC) is a Joint European Torus (ET) diagnostic, based on a set of 19 collimated lines of sight equipped with plastic (BC418) and liquid (NE213) scintillators, with the main function of measuring the neutron emissivity profile due to 2.5 MeV (DD) and 14 MeV (DT). Due to several limitations of the present data acquisition system and in view of the JET DT campaign, an enhancement project (Neutron Camera Upgrade, NCU) was launched. The main objective was to improve the measurement capability of NC for 14 MeV neutrons, by application of a high throughput FPGA-based digital acquisition system. The present paper describes the hardware architecture and the FPGA processing selected for the NCU project and the first tests carried out at JET. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

A series of neon seeded JET ELMy H-mode pulses is considered from the modeling as well as from the experimental point of view. For two different Ne seeding rates and two different D puffing gas levels the heating power, Pheat, is in the range 22–29.5 MW. The main focus is on the numerical reconstruction of the total radiated power (which mostly depends on the W concentration) and its distribution between core and divertor and of Zeff (which mostly depends on the Ne concentration). To model self-consistently the core and the SOL two input parameters had to be adjusted case by case: the SOL diffusivity, DSOL, and the core impurity inward pinch, vpinch. DSOL had to be increased with increasing ΓNe and the level of vpinch had to be changed, for any given ΓNe, according to the level of Pheat: it decreases with increasing Pheat. Since the ELM frequency, fELM, is experimentally correlated with Pheat, (it increases with Pheat) the impurity inward pinch can be seen as to depend on fELM. Therefore, to maintain a low vpinch level (i.e. high fELM) ΓNe/Pheat should not exceed a certain threshold, which slightly increases with the ΓD puffing rate. This might lead to a limitation in the viability of reducing the target heat load by Ne seeding at moderate ΓD, while keeping Zeff at acceptably low level.

One of the important techniques used at JET for studying fast ions is based on measurements of gamma rays which are produced as a result of nuclear reactions between ions and plasma impurities. The intense neutron and gamma-ray fluxes expected during a DT campaign impose dew requirements on detector characteristics used in such experiments. In addition to good energy resolution, detectors must also be characterized by a high signal-to-noise ratio and allow to perform measurements at high counting rate about 1 Mcps. The scintillators which fulfill these requirements are, among others, LaBr3:Ce, already tested at JET, and CeBr3 with a scintillation decay time of similar to 20 ns. We report on measurements which were performed with a detector module equipped with a 3" x 3" CeBr3 scintillator and with an active voltage divider AVD@NCBJ, designed and constructed at NCBJ. Standard gamma -ray sources, as well as a PuBe source, were used for measurements. The comparison of measured and Monte Carlo simulated spectra is also presented. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A strong effect of divertor configuration on the threshold power for the L-H transition (PLH) was observed in recent JET experiments in the new ITER-like Wall (ILW) [1], [2], [3]. Following a series of EDGE2D-EIRENE code simulations with Be impurity and drifts a possible mechanism for the PLH variation with the divertor geometry is proposed. Both experiment and code simulations show that in the configuration with lower neutral recycling near the outer strike point (OSP), electron temperature (Te) peaks near the OSP prior to the L-H transition, while in the configuration with higher OSP recycling Te peaks further out in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and the plasma stays in the L-mode at the same input power. Code results show large positive radial electric field (Er) in the near SOL under lower recycling conditions leading to a large E × B shear across the separatrix which may trigger earlier (at lower input power) edge turbulence suppression and lower PLH. Suppressed Te's at OSP in configurations with strike points on vertical targets (VT) were observed earlier and explained by a geometrical effect of neutral recycling near this particular position, whereas in configurations with strike points on horizontal targets (HT) the OSP appears to be more open for neutrals (see e.g. review paper [4]).

Post-mortem analyses of individual components provide relevant information on plasma-surface interactions like tungsten erosion, beryllium deposition and plasma fuel retention with divertor tiles via implantation or co-deposition. Ion Beam techniques are ideal tools for such purposes and have been extensively used for post-mortem analyses of selected tiles from JET following each campaign.In this contribution results from tiles removed from the JET ITER-Like Wall (JET-ILW) divertor following the 2013-2014 campaign are presented. The results summarize erosion, deposition and fuel retention along the poloidal cross section of the divertor surface and provide data for comparison with the first JET-ILW campaign, showing a similar pattern of material migration with the exception of Tile 6 where the strike point time on the tile was similar to 4 times longer in 2013-2014 than in 2011-2012, which is likely to account for more material migration to this region. The W deposition on top of the Mo marker coating of Tile 4 shows that the enrichment takes place at the strike point location. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Burning plasmas with 500 MW of fusion power on ITER will rely on partially detached divertor operation to keep target heat loads at manageable levels. Such divertor regimes will be maintained by a real-time control system using the seeding of radiative impurities like nitrogen (N), neon or argon as actuator and one or more diagnostic signals as sensors. Recently, real-time control of divertor detachment has been successfully achieved in Type I ELMy H-mode JET-ITER-like wall discharges by using saturation current (Isat) measurements from divertor Langmuir probes as feedback signals to control the level of N seeding. The degree of divertor detachment is calculated in real-time by comparing the outer target peak Isat measurements to the peak Isat value at the roll-over in order to control the opening of the N injection valve. Real-time control of detachment has been achieved in both fixed and swept strike point experiments. The system has been progressively improved and can now automatically drive the divertor conditions from attached through high recycling and roll-over down to a user-defined level of detachment. Such a demonstration is a successful proof of principle in the context of future operation on ITER which will be extensively equipped with divertor target probes.

A newly established scaling of the ELM energy fluence using dedicated data sets from JET operation with CFC & ILW plasma facing components (PFCs), ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) operation with both CFC and full-W PFCs and MAST with CFC walls has been generated. The scaling reveals an approximately linear dependence of the peak ELM energy with the pedestal top electron pressure and with the minor radius; a square root dependence is seen on the relative ELM loss energy. The result of this scaling gives a range in parallel peak ELM energy fluence of 10–30 MJm−2 for ITER Q= 10 operation and 2.5–7.5 MJm−2 for intermediate ITER operation at 7.5 MA and 2.65 T. These latter numbers are calculated using a numerical regression (ɛII=0.28MJm2ne0.75Te1ΔEELM0.5Rgeo1). A simple model for ELM induced thermal load is introduced, resulting in an expression for the ELM energy fluence of ɛII≅6π pe Rgeo qedge. The relative ELM loss energy in the data is between 2–10% and the ELM energy fluence varies within a range of 100.5 ∼ 3 consistently for each individual device. The so far analysed power load database for ELM mitigation experiments from JET-EFCC and Kicks, MAST-RMP and AUG-RMP operation are found to be consistent with both the scaling and the introduced model, ie not showing a further reduction with respect to their pedestal pressure. The extrapolated ELM energy fluencies are compared to material limits in ITER and found to be of concern.

A strong modelling program has been started in support of the future JET-DT campaign with the aim of guiding experiments in deuterium (D) towards maximizing fusion energy production in Deuterium-Tritium (DT). Some of the key elements have been identified by using several of the most updated and sophisticated models for predicting heat and particle transport, pedestal pressure and heating sources in an integrated modelling framework. For the high beta and low gas operational regime, the density plays a critical role and a trend towards higher fusion power is obtained at lower densities. Additionally, turbulence stabilization by E x B flow shear is shown to generate an isotope effect leading to higher confinement for DT than DD and therefore plasmas with high torque are suitable for maximizing fusion performance. Future JET campaigns will benefit from this modelling activity by defining clear priorities on their scientific program.

In this paper we discuss results from the study of the energy balance in JET based on calculated heating energies, radiated energy from bolometry and tile calorimetry. Recent data enables us to be more confident in the numbers used and to exclude certain possibilities but the overall energy imbalance which typically amounts to 25% of total input remains unexplained. This shows that caution is required in interpreting fractional radiated powers which are commonly used to measure the effectiveness of impurity seeded scenarios at reducing divertor heat load. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

A dimensionless collisionality scan in low-triangularity plasmas in the Joint European Torus with the ITER-like wall (JET-ILW) has been performed. The increase of the normalized energy confinement (defined as the ratio between thermal energy confinement and Bohm confinement time) with decreasing collisionality is observed. Moreover, at low collisionality, a confinement factor H98, comparable to JET-C, is achieved. At high collisionality, the low normalized confinement is related to a degraded pedestal stability and a reduction in the density-profile peaking. The increase of normalized energy confinement is due to both an increase in the pedestal and in the core regions. The improvement in the pedestal is related to the increase of the stability. The improvement in the core is driven by (i) the core temperature increase via the temperature-profile stiffness and by (ii) the density-peaking increase driven by the low collisionality. Pedestal stability analysis performed with the ELITE (edge-localized instabilities in tokamak equilibria) code has a reasonable qualitative agreement with the experimental results. An improvement of the pedestal stability with decreasing collisionality is observed. The improvement is ascribed to the reduction of the pedestal width, the increase of the bootstrap current and the reduction of the relative shift between the positions of the pedestal density and pedestal temperature. The EPED1 model predictions for the pedestal pressure height are qualitatively well correlated with the experimental results. Quantitatively, EPED1 overestimates the experimental pressure by 15–35%. In terms of the pedestal width, a correct agreement (within 10–15%) between the EPED1 and the experimental width is found at low collisionality. The experimental pedestal width increases with collisionality. Nonetheless, an extrapolation to low-collisionality values suggests that the width predictions from the KBM constraint are reasonable for ITER.

We investigated the dependence of the backscatter component of the neutron spectrum on the emissivity profile. We did so for the JET neutron camera system, by calculating a profile-dependent backscatter matrix for each of the 19 camera channels using a MCNP model of the JET tokamak. We found that, when using a low minimum energy for the summation of the counts in the neutron pulse height spectrum, the backscatter contribution can depend significantly on the emissivity profile. The maximum variation in the backscatter level was 24% (8.0% when compared to the total emission). This effect needs to be considered when a correction for the backscatter contribution is applied to the measured profile. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.