Lagrangian particle simulation of hydrogen pellets and SPI into runaway electron beam in ITER

TL;DR

This paper uses a detailed Lagrangian particle simulation to study how hydrogen pellets and SPI fragments ablate and penetrate into runaway electron beams in ITER, revealing key dynamics of plasma-cloud interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive ablation model that captures detailed physics near pellet fragments and large-scale cloud expansion in ITER conditions.

Findings

Ablation cloud penetration depth is approximately 50 cm.

Impact ionization and cross-field transport significantly influence ablation dynamics.

Simulation results inform pellet injection strategies for runaway electron mitigation.

Abstract

Numerical studies of the ablation of pellets and shattered pellet injection (SPI) fragments into a runaway electron beam in ITER have been performed using a time-dependent pellet ablation code [R. Samulyak at el., Nucl Fusion, 61 (4), 046007 (2021)]. The code resolves detailed ablation physics near pellet fragments and large-scale expansion of ablated clouds. The study of a single fragment ablation quantifies the influence of various factors, in particular the impact ionization by runaway electrons and cross-field transport models, on the dynamics of ablated plasma and its penetration into the runaway beam. Simulations of SPI performed using different numbers of pellet fragments study the formation and evolution of ablation clouds and their large-scale dynamics in ITER. The penetration depth of ablation clouds is found to be of the order of 50 cm.