Jarrod is a Fusion CDT student based at the York Plasma Institute who successfully defended his thesis at viva on 6 April 2016. Jarrod’s supervisor is Dr. Ben Dudson.

Jarrod’s thesis is entitled “Integrated modelling of tokamak core and edge plasma turbulence” and an abstract follows:

The accurate prediction of turbulent transport and its effect on tokamak operation is vital for the performance and development of operational scenarios for future fusion devices.  For problems of this complexity, a common approach is integrated modelling where multiple, well-benchmarked codes are coupled together to form a code that covers a larger domain and range of physics than each of the constituents.  The main goal of this work is to develop such a code that integrates core and edge physics for long-time simulation of the tokamak plasma.  Three questions are addressed that contribute to the ultimate end goal of this core/edge coupling, each of which spans a chapter.  Firstly, the choice of model for edge and core must be fluid for the time scales of interest, but the validity of a common further simplification to the physics models (i.e. the drift-reduction) is explored for regions of interest within a tokamak.  Secondly, maintaining a high computational efficiency in such integrated frameworks is challenging, and increasing this while maintaining accurate simulations is important.  The use of sub-grid dissipation models is ubiquitous and useful, so the accuracy of such models is explored.  Thirdly, the challenging geometry of a tokamak necessitates the use of a field-aligned coordinate system in the edge plasma, which has limitations.  A new coordinate system is developed and tested to improve upon the standard system and remove some of its constraints.  Finally, the investigation of these topics culminates in the coupling of an edge and core code (BOUT++ and CENTORI, respectively) to produced a working, three-dimensional, two-fluid plasma turbulence simulation.

Jarrod will be staying at the YPI taking a Post-Doc position working with Dr Ben Dudson.