3D edge transport analysis of ITER start-up configuration for limiter power load assessment

The edge transport properties of the toroidally discrete limiter configuration in the ITER start-up phase has been analysed, using the 3D edge transport code, EMC3-EIRENE. Because of the finite magnetic shear in the edge, the interaction of the limiters with flux surfaces of different g-values introduces a complex 3D pattern in the connection length (L(C)) profiles, where long and short flux tubes co-exist in the scrape-off layer. The severity of problems associated with very long flux tubes in the edge, which could bring a large amount of energy (proportional to the square root of L(C)) and cause a hot spot on the limiter, was mitigated and no significant localized power load was found. This can be justified as follows. (i) For long flux tubes, the perpendicular energy transport time becomes shorter than the parallel energy transport time, resulting in no net energy input to the flux tube. (ii) Perpendicular transport was found to be very effective to smear out the difference in the parallel energy flux conducted by the various flux tubes, if they interact within a perpendicular transport scale, about a few cm, which is usually the case in high plasma current ITER start-up configuration. These two effects significantly reduce the dependence of energy deposition on L(C). At the high plasma current (e.g. 6.5 MA), the peak power load is found to be close to the engineering limit, especially for lowest perpendicular transport coefficients and the highest input power. Comparing the results of the 3D modelling with a radial exponential decay model, it was found that by neglecting the 3D geometrical effects, the simple model overestimates the peak power load by similar to 30% for corresponding input power and radial decay of energy flux.