NOVA: A nonvariational code for solving the MHD stability of axisymmetric toroidal plasmas (Q1089211)

In this paper, the authors presents a numerical method for integrating ideal MHD equations which can be easily generlized to integrate non- Hermitian eigenmode equations. The code NOVA does not involve variational energy principles. All these variational ideal MHD stability codes employed linear finite elements in the minor radius direction which are the lowest order finite elements allowed for representing the displacement vector. It is shown that the NOVA code can produce more accurate results with less computational efforts. The code has also been applied to several typical problems to illustrate the convergence properties with different coordinate systems. The paper will be very much helpful for the researcher working in this area.