Revisited global drift fluid model for linear devices

The problem of energy conserving global drift fluid simulations is revisited. It is found that for the case of cylindrical plasmas in a homogenous magnetic field, a straightforward reformulation is possible avoiding simplifications leading to energetic inconsistencies. The particular new feature is the rigorous treatment of the polarisation drift by a generalization of the vorticity equation. The resulting set of model equations contains previous formulations as limiting cases and is suitable for efficient numerical techniques. Examples of applications on studies of plasma blobs and its impact on plasma target interaction are presented. The numerical studies focus on the appearance of plasma blobs and intermittent transport and its consequences on the release of sputtered target materials in the plasma. Intermittent expulsion of particles in radial direction can be observed and it is found that although the neutrals released from the target show strong fluctuations in their propagation into the plasma column, the overall effect on time averaged profiles is negligible for the conditions considered. In addition, the numerical simulations are utilised to perform an a-posteriori assessment of the magnitude of energetic inconsistencies in previously used simplified models. It is found that certain popular approximations, in particular by the use of simplified vorticity equations, do not significantly affect energetics. However, popular model simplifications with respect to parallel advection are found to provide significant deterioration of the model consistency.