Modeling of basic physics issues in torodial pinches and tools for performance control

Nonlinear modelling has improved significantly in dealing with physics issues encountered in magnetically confined toroidal pinches, such as the Reversed Field Pinch and Tokamak configurations. Here, recent results relevant to the understanding of helical self-organization processes are presented: formation of internal transport barriers, temporary loss of operational point, relaxation-reconnection events, excitation of Alfvén waves, and a possible fundamental mechanism for ion heating in plasmas. Starting from physics processes in Reversed Field Pinch plasmas, several similarities with Tokamaks are presented. In addition, data analysis tools, machine learning ”autoencoding” techniques, are here trained for the first time on a RFP data analysis case