| Title: |
Simulation of helium concentration effects on divertor plasma detachment, helium exhaust, and tungsten sputtering via SOLPS-ITER |
| Authors: |
Shi, Qiqi; Liu, Xiaoju; Ming, Tingfeng; Hou, Shanwei; Deng, Rongjing; Li, Guoqiang; Gao, Xiang |
| Contributors: |
National Key R&D Program of China; National Nature Science Foundation of China |
| Source: |
Nuclear Fusion ; volume 66, issue 4, page 046010 ; ISSN 0029-5515 1741-4326 |
| Publisher Information: |
IOP Publishing |
| Publication Year: |
2026 |
| Description: |
As an unavoidable byproduct of deuterium–tritium fusion, helium (He), if uncontrolled, accumulates in core plasma and degrades reactor performance. Furthermore, the presence of helium impurities can have a significant impact on the boundary plasma. This study systematically investigates He concentration effects on divertor detachment behavior, He exhaust and tungsten (W) sputtering using SOLPS-ITER simulations. It reveals that with increasing He concentration, the density threshold of divertor detachment rises slightly. This can be attributed to He impurities diluting deuterium (D) particles, which reduces the D neutrals densities in divertor region and consequently affects their collisional processes and decreases the energy dissipation. The He ash enrichment in divertor region increases with both upstream electron density and He concentration, thereby enhancing exhaust efficiency. This is primarily ascribed to the alteration of He ion transport mechanism and the relative position between the He ion ionization source and the stagnation point of He ion poloidal velocity. In addition, the W sputtering at the divertor target was investigated. The W sputtering flux increases with rising helium concentration. Moreover, the simulation results indicate the shifted Maxwellian energy distribution of incident ions significantly influences the W sputtering flux, especially under high-density conditions. Therefore, the energy distribution of incident ions should be incorporated into the calculations of the W sputtering flux. |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
unknown |
| DOI: |
10.1088/1741-4326/ae4bf6 |
| DOI: |
10.1088/1741-4326/ae4bf6/pdf |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ae4bf6; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/ae4bf6; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/ae4bf6/pdf |
| Rights: |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ; https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.293F62FA |
| Database: |
BASE |