Discharge simulation and volt-second consumption analysis during ramp-up on the CFETR tokamak**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2017YFE0300500 and 2017YFE0300501), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11875290 and 11875253), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. WK3420000004).

Abstract

The plasma current ramp-up is an important process for tokamak discharge, which directly affects the quality of the plasma and the system resources such as volt-second consumption and plasma current profile. The China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) ramp-up discharge is predicted with the tokamak simulation code (TSC). The main plasma parameters, the plasma configuration evolution and coil current evolution are given out. At the same time, the volt-second consumption during CFETR ramp-up is analyzed for different plasma shaping times and different plasma current ramp rates dIP/dt with/without assisted heating. The results show that the earlier shaping time and the faster plasma current ramp rate with auxiliary heating will enable the volt-second to save 5%–10%. At the same time, the system ability to provide the volt-second is probably 470 V · s. These simulations will give some reference to engineering design for CFETR to some degree.