EFDA-JET-CP(01)07/03
ELM Mitigation by Nitrogen Seeding in the JET Gas Box Divertor
One of the most severe problems for fusion reactors is the power load on the divertor target plates. Technically only power loads of less than 10MW/m2 are acceptable. However, strong ELM (Edge Localized Mode) activity can lead to power loads in excess of 800MW/m2. In order to reduce the steady-state heat flux and the transient heat flux due to ELMs radiation cooling experiments were performed at JET. Nitrogen was puffed into the divertor up to a radiative power fraction of 90%. This was achieved at a density of 0.85 times the Greenwald density [1], while maintaining an H-factor of fH 98 = 0.82. The Zeff in all those discharges stayed around 2.0. At approximately 55% radiative power fraction the ELM characteristic changes from type-I to type-III, resulting in a loss of confinement of about 25% due to a degradation of the edge pedestal and hence a reduction of the ELM power load to the divertor tiles. By increasing the radiative power fraction to values of about 90% the heat flux is further reduced to 2MW/m2 although the stored energy is increasing.