Calculations of two-fluid magnetohydrodynamic axisymmetric steady-states

• Authors: N. M. Ferraro;S. C. Jardin
• Venue: Journal of Computational Physics
• Year: 2009

M3D-C^1 is an implicit, high-order finite element code for the solution of the time-dependent nonlinear two-fluid magnetohydrodynamic equations [S.C. Jardin, J. Breslau, N. Ferraro, A high-order implicit finite element method for integrating the two-fluid magnetohydrodynamic equations in two dimensions, J. Comp. Phys. 226 (2) (2007) 2146-2174]. This code has now been extended to allow computations in toroidal geometry. Improvements to the spatial integration and time-stepping algorithms are discussed. Steady-states of a resistive two-fluid model, self-consistently including flows, anisotropic viscosity (including gyroviscosity) and heat flux, are calculated for diverted plasmas in geometries typical of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) [M. Ono et al., Exploration of spherical torus physics in the NSTX device, Nucl. Fusion 40 (3Y) (2000) 557-561]. These states are found by time-integrating the dynamical equations until the steady-state is reached, and are therefore stationary or statistically steady on both magnetohydrodynamic and transport time-scales. Resistively driven cross-surface flows are found to be in close agreement with Pfirsch-Schluter theory. Poloidally varying toroidal flows are in agreement with comparable calculations [A.Y. Aydemir, Shear flows at the tokamak edge and their interaction with edge-localized modes, Phys. Plasmas 14]. New effects on core toroidal rotation due to gyroviscosity and a local particle source are observed.