Position
Graduate Student
Email
Office
Swiss Plasma Centre (SPC), École Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Bio/Description
Erol Balkovic is a graduate student at the Swiss Plasma Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. Under supervision of Joaquim Loizu and Jonathan Graves, he works on research related to the prediction of nonlinear saturation of Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities using equilibrium codes, namely the Stepped Pressure Equilibrium Code (SPEC). The goal of this research is to show that the saturated state of classical and neoclassical tearing modes (NTM) can be found using only a quick and simple equilibrium solve, rather than expensive integration of the full, time-dependent MHD model. Allowing for fast analysis of nonlinear saturation of MHD instabilities, this work may lead to significant benefits for stellarator optimization.