Energy flux to the textor limiters during disruptions

Rapidly changing heat fluxes deposited on the limiter blades are observed during disruptions by infrared (IR) scanners. These scanners are a suitable tool for the analysis of these heat fluxes because they provide both spatial and temporal information with sufficient resolution. Several new features of the power flux to the plasma facing surfaces, during a disruption have been found. The disruptive heat flux occurs on three different time-scales. The fastest ones are for heat bursts with a duration of ⩽ 0.1 ms; several of these bursts form a thermal quench of about one millisecond duration, and some of these thermal quenches are found to occur during the current decay phase. Power flux densities of the order of 50 MW/m2 have been observed during a burst. The spatial extent of the area on which this power is deposited during a burst is larger than or equal to the size of half an ALT-II blade, i.e. about 1 m in the toroidal direction. Simultaneous measurements with two cameras show that the correlation length of a single burst is smaller than half the toroidal circumference, probably of the order of half a blade or a full blade length. This is consistent with plasma islands of low mode number. The typical heat deposition patterns at the limiter blades for normal discharges are preserved during a disruption. The magnetic structure near the plasma surface can therefore not be destroyed completely during the thermal quench. The power flux follows the field lines. However, the power e-folding length is about a factor of two to three times larger than under normal discharge conditions