(A)dvanced (N)umerical tool for (I)nvestigating (K)inetic-fluid (A)ctivity in tokamaks – ANIKA

The objective of this project is to transform the XTOR code of the CPhT (Ecole Polytechnique) dedicated for the tri-dimensional study of fusion plasmas into a tool able to describe these plasmas beyond MHD, taking into account effects which are either of multi-fluid type, or of kinetic type resulting from the dynamics of a population represented by a sample of particles. The kinetic treatment of these effects is mandatory to simulate collective effects due to hot particles, in particular the alphas produced by thermonuclear reactions in ITER. The multi-fluid developments are necessary for a good comparison with the experiment, which is another objective of the project under the responsibility of the partner IRFM/CEA. The fluid type and particle type populations are coupled by their pressure tensors, which close the momentum equations. The developed tools will be transferred to the DRFC and the CRPP for scientific production purposes and the simulation of experimental discharges or ITER discharges using the database of actual machines. The CRPP (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland) will participate as an associate partner, with comparative benchmarks using their own numerical tools. This project is built on a well-stabilized numerical code at first international level in MHD. It will use a new algorithm, based on a fully implicit matrix-free Newton-Krylov method. This project anticipates the availability at about its end of petaflop super-computers.