Improved Radial Differencing for Three-Dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic Equilibrium Calculations

摘要

Several numerical schemes are described for accurately discretizing the radial dependence of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) energy of a toroidal plasma configuration. Compared with previous schemes, the new methods have significantly improved mesh convergence properties for the energy, magnetic axis, and other equilibrium parameters. This has favorable implications for both stability analysis (where small numerical errors in the energy can significantly affect the computation of marginal points) and transport applications (where equilibrium computations on coarse meshes are desirable). (ERA citation 11:055422)