Development of a gyrokinetic-MHD energetic particle simulation code. I. MHD version

Abstract

A new magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code based on initial value approach, GMEC_I, has been developed for simulating various MHD physics in tokamak plasmas, as the MHD foundation of the gyrokinetic-MHD energetic particle simulation code (GMEC) family. GMEC_I solves multi-level reduced-MHD models that form a hierarchy of physics complexity, which provide conveniences for the cross-code verification and the identification of key physics effect in tokamak geometry. The field-aligned coordinates are used to represent mode structure efficiently. High-order finite difference methods are used for spatial discretization. The shifted metric methods are used for numerical stability. The discrete expansion forms of physics equations in the code are generated symbolically using the compile-time symbolic solver, which is specifically developed to reduce the complexity of the high-order finite difference form of the MHD equations. Advanced computational techniques have been implemented for optimizing memory access and code parallelization that show a good efficiency using both thread building block and message passing interface. Benchmarks between GMEC_I and the eigenvalue code MAS are presented for ballooning modes without and with diamagnetic drift effects, and tearing modes, which show excellent agreements.