Approach to nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic simulations in stellarator geometry
- 14 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Nuclear Fusion
- Vol. 61 (8), 086015
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ac0b35
Abstract
The capability to model the nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) evolution of stellarator plasmas is developed by extending the M3D-$C^1$ code to allow non-axisymmetric domain geometry. We introduce a set of logical coordinates, in which the computational domain is axisymmetric, to utilize the existing finite-element framework of M3D-$C^1$. A $C^1$ coordinate mapping connects the logical domain to the non-axisymmetric physical domain, where we use the M3D-$C^1$ extended MHD models essentially without modifications. We present several numerical verifications on the implementation of this approach, including simulations of the heating, destabilization, and equilibration of a stellarator plasma with strongly anisotropic thermal conductivity, and of the relaxation of stellarator equilibria to integrable and non-integrable magnetic field configurations in realistic geometries.
Keywords
Funding Information
- US Department of Energy (DE-AC02-09CH11466)
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