Divertor Heat Loads from Thermal and Alpha Particles in a Compact Stellarator Reactor

Abstract

Divertor heat load distributions due to thermal and alpha particles have been assessed in an NCSX-based compact stellarator reactor. A divertor plate system is envisaged, with 4 plates per field period and covering 7% of the plasma surface area. The field-line tracing technique is employed; for thermal flux, the conventional approach is used, while for alphas, their characteristic exit pattern from the plasma and subsequent gyro- orbits are approximated. For the ARIES-CS reference design point (R=7.75 m, A=4.5, B=5.7 T, beta=6.4% and Pnet=1000 MW), combined peak heat loads in the 5 -18 MW/m2 range on the plates have been obtained, assuming a 75% radiation fraction both in the core and at the edge, and a 5% alpha loss fraction. The alpha heat flux could be a dominant determining factor. Further optimization study is warranted to lower all peak heat loads to satisfy the accepted limit of les10 MW/m2.