A Model of Turbulent Mixing of Species, Momentum, and Energy in a Vapor Shield Plasma

Evidence suggests that turbulent mixing may affect the energy transport through the vapor shield (VS) formed during a tokamak disruption. The VS is first found to be very unstable according to the Rayleigh-Taylor stability criteria. Adding beam mass to the vaporized material and then mixing of the entire VS is found to cause a significant increase in energy transport through the VS for fusion reactor disruption-relevant energy beams. Mixing the VS for electrothermal gun-relevant energy beams can also affect the energy transport rate, depending on the source species used.