Introduction and Validation of the APEC Code for the Simulation of Plasma Equilibrium and Evolution in the Presence of 3-D Passive Structures

Recently, a novel code for the simulation of the plasma equilibrium and its evolution has been developed and fully implemented in ANSYS. We named it ANSYS Plasma Equilibrium and Evolution Code (APEC). It is based on the solution of the Grad-Shafranov equation and exploits the finite-element method using the magnetic potential vector formulation. In this article, we present a further development on the coupling of the axisymmetric plasma equilibrium equations, describing the plasma behavior, with the full 3-D eddy current equations, defining the surrounding 3-D structures. One test case, related to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) tokamak, has been fully analyzed and benchmarked with a validated code showing the validity of the proposed approach. In particular, the benchmark has concerned the comparison of the initial equilibrium and plasma evolution.