Local and integral forces on the vacuum vessel during thermal quench in the ITER tokamak

The forces arising during an early stage of disruption in tokamaks are studied here. The analysis is based on DINA calculations and comparison with recent analytical predictions (Pustovitov 2015 Plasma Phys. Rep. 41 952). One such prediction was that a large radial force on the vacuum vessel wall can be generated by a thermal quench (TQ) alone, even before the plasma current is changed. The numerical results presented here confirm this and provide precise quantitative characteristics. The calculations are performed for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) geometry by using the DINA code. It is shown, in particular, that the TQ-produced radial force in ITER can reach ~70 MN. Its poloidal distribution has a peak ~2.8 times larger than the average. The relevant details of physics models are also presented.