Far-Tech, Inc. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: Development of an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source is the

Description

Development of an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source is the goal of the Fusion Energy Sciences program. One of the main approaches for plasma heating and current drive in fusion devices is to use the radio frequency waves. Radio frequency waves are used for heating and/or current drive in most magnetic plasma confinement devices, such as Tokamaks, Reversed Field Pinches, Stellarators and Mirror Machines, and also they are used in the industrial plasma sources. Numerical modeling of radio frequency fields in both the fusion and in the industrial plasma devices is a very important part of analysis of performance of such devices. We will develop a new parallelized full wave radio frequency code to accurately model 3-dimensional radio frequency fields in the fusion and in the industrial plasma devices. In the Phase I project it will be determined whether the approach to solve the 3- dimensional full wave equations, discretized in the configuration space and using the plasma conductivity kernel, by applying the Krylov subspace iterative methods is feasible with the modern computing power. In Phase I we will test the feasibility of calculation of the discretized plasma conductivity kernel in 3-dimensional configuration space by integrating Vlasov equation along unperturbed particles orbits. We will test the feasibility of solving the formulated linear full wave equations by the Krylov subspace iterative methods. These studies will be done by developing a parallel computer code using modern techniques and libraries. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: The code will be used: in the design, operation and performance assessment of radio frequency systems in the existing and planned fusion devices; in the design, operation and performance assessment of the industrial radio frequency plasma devices; in the design, operation and performance assessment of the electron cyclotron ion sources; in conducting basic research on waves in plasmas.