Experimental study of disruption mitigation using massive injection of noble gases on Tore Supra

Disruptions are a major threat for future tokamaks, including ITER. Disruption-generated heat loads, electromagnetic forces and runaway electrons will not be tolerable for next-generation devices. Massive noble gas injection is foreseen as a standard mitigation system for these tokamaks. Disruption mitigation experiments have been carried out on Tore Supra to study various injection scenarios and to investigate gas jet penetration and mixing. Comparisons of different gases (He, Ne, Ar, He/Ar mixture) and amounts (from 5 to 500 Pa m(3)) were made, showing that light gases are more efficient regarding runaway electron suppression than heavier gases. Eddy currents in the limiter are moderately reduced by all the gases, and may be more dependent on the time constants of the structures than on the gas species. The density rise induced by the massive injection before the thermal quench is higher and faster with light gases. Gas jet penetration in the cooling phase is observed to be shallow and independent of the gas nature and amount. The gas cold front is stopped along the q = 2 surface where it triggers MHD instabilities, expelling thermal energy from the plasma core.