Vector dither experiment design and direct parametric identification of reversed-field pinch normal modes

Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) research ambitiously endeavours to develop a major future energy source. MCF power plant designs, typically some variation on the tokamak, unfortunately suffer from magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities. One unstable mode is known as the resistive-wall mode (RWM) which is a macroscopically global type of perturbation that can degrade or even terminate the plasma in the reactor if not stabilized. In this work the topic of RWMs is studied for the reversed-field pinch (RFP), another toroidal MCF concept, similar to the tokamak. The problem of identifying RWM dynamics during closed-loop operation is tackled by letting physics-based parametric modeling join forces with convex programming experiment design. An established MHD normal modes description is assessed for the RFP by synthesizing a multivariable dither signal where spatial Fourier modes are spectrally shaped, with regard to real experiment constraints, to yield minimum variance parameter estimates in the prediction-error framework. The dithering is applied to the real RFP plant EXTRAP-T2R, and experimental MHD spectra are obtained by an automated procedure.