Error field considerations for BPX

Irregularities in the position of poloidal and/or toroidal field coils in tokamaks produce resonant toroidal asymmetries in the vacuum magnetic fields. Otherwise stable tokamak discharges become nonlinearly unstable to disruptive locked modes when subjected to low level error fields. Because of the field errors, magnetic islands are produced which would not otherwise occur in tearing mode stable configurations; a concomitant reduction of the total confinement can result. Poloidal and toroidal asymmetries arise in the heat flux to the divertor target. The field errors from perturbed BPX (Burning Plasma Experiment) coils are used in a field line tracing code of the BPX equilibrium to study these deleterious effects. Limits on coil irregularities for device design and fabrication are computed along with possible correcting coils for reducing such field errors.<
>