Plasma shield dynamics and target erosion in disruption simulation experiments

Dynamics of carbon plasma shields and graphite target erosion experimentall y studied at the recently upgraded plasma gun facility MK-200 UG at TRINITI Troitsk are compared with numerical results from FOREV-2 which allows a 2- D modeling of hot plasma target interaction. It is shown that turbulent pro cesses are absent in the experimental plasma shields. Anomalous lateral los ses of plasma mass are not occurring and plasma shield dynamics can be desc ribed by the multidimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamics (R-MHD) equati ons together with a consistent solution of the multidimensional magnetic fi eld equations with classical magnetic field diffusion coefficient. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.