Explosive Fluid Instability and Fusion Performance

Professor Sir Steven Cowley (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory) Cambridge Fluids Network - fluids-related seminars 19 October 2018 1:00pm JDB Seminar Room, CUED The conditions for fusion to occur in a plasma will be reviewed. Fusion devices are plagued by kinetic plasma turbulence that convects heat from the middle of the plasma to the walls. The best fusion performance is obtained when the turbulence is suppressed. Unfortunately when the kinetic plasma turbulence is suppressed the pressure builds until an explosive fluid (Magnetohydrodynamic) instability is triggered. I will describe these filamentary instabilities and their explosive nonlinear dynamics. Efforts to find a soft pressure limit, where the instabilities are not explosive, will be discussed.