Impurity penetration through the edge transport barrier

The ELMs in H-mode plasmas manifest themselves as short bursts of increased edge transport, which expel energy and particles, including impurities from the plasma edge to the SOL and further towards target plates and limiters (Zohm H 1996 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion38 1213, Loarte A et al2003 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion45 1549). ELMs are considered beneficial events with respect to impurities since they can prevent impurities from accumulating in the plasma core. JET has recently performed an experiment in which a controlled influx of noble gas impurities was successfully used in order to reduce the amplitude and frequency of type-I ELMs. An interesting correlation between the level of the main gas puffing and the radial redistribution of impurities has been found in this experiment: it was shown that impurities are contained near the separatrix in discharges with a relatively strong level of main gas puffing. Reduction of the puffing below a certain level leads to impurity accumulation in the core followed by thermal collapse. This paper describes the results of predictive modelling of impurity seeding experiments on JET using a coupling of the 1.5D core transport code JETTO (for the main ions) and 1D transport code SANCO (for impurities). Two sets of boundary conditions for the density and temperatures, which correspond to two different deuterium gas puffing rates, were used in the modelling. An explanation for the experimentally observed phenomenon is presented.