Radiative snowflake divertor studies in DIII-D

Recent DIII-D experiments assessed the snowflake divertor (SF) configuration in a radiative regime in H-mode discharges with D2 seeding. The SF configuration was maintained for many energy confinement times (2–3s) in H-mode discharges (Ip=1.2MA, PNBI=4–5MW, and B×∇B down (favorable direction toward the divertor)), and found to be compatible with high performance operation (H98y2⩾1). The two studied SF configurations, the SF-plus and the SF-minus, have a small finite distance between the primary X-point and the secondary Bp null located in the private flux region or the common flux region, respectively. In H-mode discharges with the SF configurations (cf. H-mode discharges with the standard divertor with similar conditions) the stored energy lost per the edge localized mode (ELM) was reduced, and significant divertor heat flux reduction between and during ELMs was observed over a range of collisionalities, from lower density conditions toward a higher density H-modes with the radiative SF divertor.