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CASTOR Research team

Control, Analysis and Simulations for TOkamak Research

Team presentation

Castor gathers the activities in numerical simulation of fusion plasmas with the activities
in control and optimisation done in the laboratory Jean-Alexandre Dieudonn´e of the University
of Nice. The main objective of the Castor team is to contribute to the development of
innovative numerical tools to improve the computer simulations of complex turbulent or unstable
flows in plasma physics and to develop methods allowing the real-time control of these
flows and the optimisation of scenarios of plasma discharges in tokamaks. Castor is a common
project between Inria (http://www.inria.fr/centre/sophia) and the University of Nice Sophia-
Antipolis and CNRS through the laboratory Jean-Alexandre Dieudonn´e, UMR UNS-CNRS 7351,
(http://math.unice.fr).

Research themes

  • Mathematical modelling based on the study of different fluid models
  • Numerical methods enabling to solve these MHD models
  • Identification and control problems for axisymmetric plasma equilibrium
  • Applications to real physical problems connected with controlled fusion.

International and industrial relations

Since 2014, CASTOR participates to the following EuroFusion consortium projects (Euratom
H2020 program: Grant agreement No 633053):

  • Enabling research contract 2014-2017 CfP-WP14-ER-01/Swiss Confederation-01. ”Synergetic
    numerical-experimental approach to fundamental aspects of turbulent transport in the tokamak
    edge.”
  • Enabling research contract 2014-2018. (B. Nkonga, H. Guillard, A. Sangam) CfP-WP15-ENR-
    01/IPP-05. ”Global non-linear MHD modeling in toroidal X-point geometry of disruptions,
    edge localized modes, and techniques for their mitigation and suppression”.
  • EUROfusion WPCD (Working Package Code Development)
    • ACT1: Extended equilibrium and stability chain
    • ACT2: Free boundary equilibrium and control
  • Collaboration with ITER

Keywords: Applied mathematics Numerical Analysis Scientific computing Modelling Tokamak Plasma Nuclear fusion Control Identification Inverse problems

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