UEDGE

A 2D time-dependent fluid simulation code of plasma and neutrals in magnetic fusion devices.

Brief description

UEDGE is an interactive suite of physics packages using the Python or BASIS scripting systems. The original (circa 2007) Python version was further developed under the FACETS SciDAC project [Cary 2008, McCourt 2012]. The plasma is described by time-dependent 2D plasma fluid equations that include equations for density, velocity, ion temperature, electron temperature, electrostatic potential, and gas density in the edge region of a magnetic fusion energy confinement device. slab, cylindrical, and toroidal geometries are allowed, and closed and open magnetic field-line regions are included. Classical transport is assumed along magnetic field lines, and anomalous transport is assumed across field lines. Multi-charge state impurities can be included with the corresponding line-radiation energy loss.

Method of solution

A fully implicit numerical algorithm is used that allows both Newton-like iterations to steady state and time-dependent solutions with large time-steps. A preconditioning matrix is obtained by approximate (ILUT) inversion of a numerical finite-difference Jacobian, which is then used in a Newton-Krylov solution algorithm. A finite-volume differencing algorithm is used. Over 95% of the coding is in Fortran with the remainder being C.

Related and auxiliary software

Although UEDGE is written in Fortran, for efficient execution and analysis of results, it utilizes either Python or BASIS scripting shells. Python is easily available for many platforms (http://www.Python.org/). The features and availability of BASIS are described in "Basis Manual Set" by P.F. Dubois, Z.C. Motteler, et al., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory report UCRL-MA-118541, June, 2002 and http://basis.llnl.gov/), however, BASIS is deprecated. Contact one of the UEDGE developers if you insist on running it within that environment. The Python version of UEDGE uses the same source files but utilizes Forthon to produce a Python-compatible source. Forthon has been developed by D.P. Grote (see http://hifweb.lbl.gov/Forthon/ and Grote et al. in the references below), and it is freely available. The graphics can be performed by any package importable to Python, such as PYGIST. The parallel version of UEDGE available through Python also uses the PETSc linear algebra solver whose development has been led by ANL (https://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/).

UEDGE can also be coupled to other codes. An excellent example is couplling to the DUSTT code from UCSD (contact rsmirnov@eng.ucsd.edu) that follows the trajectories and ablation of dust particles in the background UEDGE plasma and provides impurity sources to UEDGE. For an example, see R. Smirnov et al., Phys. Plasmas 22 (2015) 012506.

Getting started

The easiest way to try out UEDGE is to download a static executable that should run on any Linux system; see the link to the executable [see uedge_executable file]. The second method is to download the UEDGE source files, and then build a Python version or a Basis version [see uedge_source directory].

How to get involved and contribute

Sent email to one of the developers listed below expressing your interest in modifying or developing packages for UEDGE. Either new or improved physics models or numerical algorithms are most welcome.

Authors contributing to V7 release

T.D. Rognlien, I. Joseph, W.H. Meyer, M.E. Rensink, and M.V. Umansky, LLNL
(trognlien@llnl.gov, joseph5@llnl.gov, meyer8@llnl.gov, rensink1@llnl.gov, umansky1@llnl.gov)

Acknowledgements to previous contributors

P.N. Brown, R.H. Cohen, D.P. Grote, A.C. Hindmarsh, L.L. LoDestro, J.L. Milovich, A. Pankin, G.D. Porter, and G.R. Smith, all presently or formerly at LLNL; M. McCourt, L.C. McInnes, and H. Zhang, ANL; J.R. Cary, A.H. Hakim, S.E. Kruger, and A. Pankin, Tech-X; D.A. Knoll, INEEL; D.P. Stotler, PPPL; B.J. Braams, retired, IAEA; A.Yu. Pigarov and R. Smirnov, UCSD; J.D. Elder, U. Toronto; M. Groth, Aalto Univ.; and R.B. Campbell, Sandia.

References

UEDGE development
T.D. Rognlien, J.L. Milovich, M.E. Rensink, and G.D. Porter, J. Nucl. Mat. 196-198 (1992) 347-351.
G.R. Smith, P.N. Brown, R.B. Campbell, D.A. Knoll, P.R. McHugh, M.E. Rensink, and T.D. Rognlien, J. Nucl. Mater. 220-222 (1995) 1024.
M.E. Rensink and T.D. Rognlien, J. Nucl. Mater. 266-269 (1999) 1180.
T.D. Rognlien, D.D. Ryutov, N. Mattor, and G.D. Porter, Phys. Plasmas 6, (1999) 1851.
T.D. Rognlien, M.E. Rensink, and G.R. Smith, "User manual for the UEDGE edge-plasma transport code," January 2000, LLNL Rpt. UCRL-ID-137121, lastest revision May 1, 2013.

Forthon development D. P. Grote, A. Friedman, I. Haber, ``Methods used in WARP3d, a Three-Dimensional PIC/Accelerator Code'', Proceedings of the 1996 Computational Accelerator Physics Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings 391, p. 51.
See also: http://hifweb.lbl.gov/Forthon/ .

FACETS project
J.R. Cary, J. Candy, R.H. Cohen et al., J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 125 (2008) 012040.
A.H. Hakim, T.D. Rognlien, R.J. Groebner et al., Phys. Plasmas 19 (2012) 032505.
M. McCourt, T.D. Rognlien, L.C. McInnes, and H. Zhang, Computational Science & Discovery 5 (2012) 014012.

Release

UEDGE is released under an LGPL license. For more details see the NOTICE and LICENSE files.

LLNL-CODE-845914