I am a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee. I joined the Wirth Research Group in Fall 2020 and have a strong interest in plasma-material interactions in nuclear fusion reactors. I received my B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
A key component in any nuclear fusion tokamak is the plasma divertor. It is typically situated at the bottom of the reactor and enables the online removal of alpha particles and other impurities from plasma. In a high power device like ITER, the divertor will be subject to steady state heat fluxes of ~20 MW/m2 for several seconds, and up to 50 MW/m2 over a span of milliseconds due to plasma instabilities such as edge localized modes (ELMs). These peak heat fluxes have the potential to melt the divertor and mitigating against such instabilities are of high importance for ITER, NSTX-U, and other devices. My work pertains to studying the spatial and temporal profiles of thermal heat flux in the upper and lower divertor regions of NSTX-U using fast infrared cameras. Developments will provide insight into mechanisms that govern ELMs and impurity transport from the divertor to outer layers of the plasma.
Email: promisea@vols.utk.edu