  The penalization method is used to take account of obstacles, such as the
limiter, in a tokamak. Because of the magnetic confinement of the plasma in a
tokamak, the transport occurs essentially in the direction parallel to the
magnetic field lines. We study a 1D nonlinear hyperbolic system as a simplified
model of the plasma transport in the area close to the wall. A penalization
which cuts the flux term of the momentum is studied. We show numerically that
this penalization creates a Dirac measure at the plasma-limiter interface which
prevents us from defining the transport term in the usual distribution sense.
Hence, a new penalty method is proposed for this hyperbolic system. For this
penalty method, an asymptotic expansion and numerical tests give an optimal
rate of convergence without spurious boundary layer. Another two-fields
penalization has also been implemented and the numerical convergence analysis
when the penalization parameter tends to $0$ reveals the presence of a boundary
layer.
