SUMMARY

ITER must have active and preferably also passive control mechanisms that will limit inadvertent plasma power excursions which could trigger runaway fusion heating. I have identified and am investigating the potential of several "burn control" mechanisms including ion-orbit loss, impurity seeding, MARFEs, and various divertor-related phenomena that could limit sudden increases in plasma density or temperature by reducing overall energy confinement. Such mechanisms could be tested on DIII-D and other existing tokamaks. To validate the utility of these mechanisms for burn control, I am assembling a new code that will incorporate a neutral transport model, a burning plasma dynamics code (adapted from my MS thesis work), ion-orbit loss calculations, and improved impurity radiation loss calculations. The code will also serve as the hub for the development of an improved plasma transport code that other graduate students are currently working on.