S. Cappello et D. Biskamp, RECONNECTION PROCESSES AND SCALING LAWS IN REVERSED-FIELD PINCH MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS, Nuclear fusion, 36(5), 1996, pp. 571-581
Reversed field pinch (RFP) sustainment is studied in the framework of
three dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulations. The
scaling law for the magnetic fluctuation amplitude with Lundquist num
ber S is delta B approximate to S-0.22, which can be understood if the
basic dynamic processes are governed by current sheet reconnection. Q
uasi-periodic oscillations are in fact found to be correlated with the
presence of localized sheet currents, which for sufficiently large S
make the major contribution to the average power dissipated by fluctua
tions. Special attention is paid to numerical convergence in the simul
ations. The results are compared with experimental observations.