In this work, the theory-based turbulence-driven transport model Trapped Gyro Landau Fluid (TGLF)-SAT2 (Staebler et al 2020 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion63 015013) (hereafter abbreviated as TGLF) is implemented and tested in the Fenix flight simulator (Fable et al 2022 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion64 044002) against the current ramp-up phases of ASDEX Upgrade discharges. Turbulence spectra for the measured kinetic profiles are calculated and analyzed using TGLF. Additionally, predictive simulations of the ramp-up are conducted using Fenix, with TGLF computing turbulent energy and particle transport, and compared with the measurements. In order to reproduce the evolution of the kinetic profiles in the presented modeling framework, the transport coefficients have to be limited in absolute value for . Moreover, an additional artificial particle diffusive component has to be added to avoid unphysical spikes in the density profile. Even without any modifications, the transport computed by TGLF for seems to be close to the transport in the experiment, whereby the kinetic profiles of the experiment can be reproduced.
This paper validates a turbulence-driven transport model called TGLF-SAT2 in the Fenix flight simulator against ASDEX Upgrade discharges. The model is used to calculate turbulence spectra and predict plasma profiles during ramp-up. To match experiments, the transport coefficients need to be limited, and an artificial particle diffusion component added.