Colleges and Universities Assisted by OSUR Program in 2013
The colleges and universities currently being assisted by the OSUR Program in 2013 are U. of Alaska, Auburn U., Augburg College, U. of California at Berkeley, U. of California at Irvine, California State at San Marcos, California U. of Technology, Columbia U., George Washington U., U. of Illinois, Leigh U., U. of Maryland, U. of New Hampshire, Prairie View A&M U., U. of Rochester, Swarthmore College, Texas A&M U., U. of Texas at Austin, U. of West Virginia, U. of Washington, U. of Wisconsin.
Examples of Projects Assisted by OSUR Program
Here are examples of college and university projects assisted by the OSUR Program: Auburn U., Columbia U., California State at San Marcos, Prarie View A&M U., Texas A&M U., U. of West Virginia.
Auburn U.
Professors J. Hanson and G. Hartwell
Plasma equilibrium reconstruction relies on many pin-point magnetic field measurements (~ 100) during the plasma discharge and rather detailed analysis. A widely used analysis code to perform these reconstructions is the VMEC MHD equilibrium code, developed for the 2-D magnetic field configuration of the tokamak device. One complication to the magnetic field measurements within the plasma is compensating for induced currents, eddy curents, in the metal vacuum vessel and magnet support coil frame. The equilibrium reconstruction is further complicated when dealing with 3-D magnetic topologies associated with stellerators and torusatrons. To study how to adapt the standard VMEC code to the coil frame and vacuum vessel of the Auburn U. Compact Toroidal Hybrid (CTH) device (Fig. 1), PPPL engineer Ali Zolfaghari used the SPARC analysis code to provide closed coil current loop representation of the eddy currents (Fig. 2). Further analysis was completed by a SULI (Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship) intern, Andrew Michaels, over the summer. The student intern developed and tested a code, JFIL, to convert the current density data from the MAXWELL code for the finite element mesh into individual current filaments, representing the eddy currents, suitable for direct use in VMEC MHD reconstruction of CTH discharges. The results of the entire project were presented at TOFE conference in Nashville in August 2012 and a paper was published in Fusion Science and Technology. Coil files were delivered to Auburn University researchers for further evaluation and implementation in CTH plasma equilibrium analysis. A few years ago the engineers of PPPL assisted in the engineering design and specification of the CTH torus components under the OSUR program.
Figure 1: CTH Machine and OH Coils Figure 2: Eddy Currents in coil frame
and Vacuium Vessel as calculated by SPARK.
