HELIAS stellarator reactor studies and related European technology studies

Abstract

Abstract Research on stellarators has been carried out in Europe since the early years of the fusion programme. Early studies of this reactor concept were done at the Culham Laboratory of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Such classical stellarators, however, have poor reactor prospects in spite of the significant advantage of not needing a large toroidal plasma current. It seemed to be just this large toroidal plasma current which has led to intrinsic deficiencies with respect to reactor potential of the tokamak. Expecting that these deficiencies would disappear for a concept without such a current, the Institut fur Plasmaphysik developed, in a roll-back fashion, i.e. by starting from reactor considerations, the concept of the helical axis advanced stellarator (HELIAS). The results achieved look very promising indeed. Since tokamaks and stellarators show many similarities, there appeared no need as yet for a new stand-alone stellarator reactor study. The work was rather concentrated on the few but decisive differences between the two concepts and on evaluation of their relative importance. Studies on the coil system, the stress distribution in the supporting material, the space needed for an efficient blanket system, the properties of the exhaust system, etc. have been done. Applying contemporary scaling laws, it turns out that although the aspect ratio of such advanced stellarators is larger than that of tokamaks, the plasma volume is about the same. The magnetic energy needed for plasma confinement is considerably lower and the mass utilization tends to be larger than for comparable tokamaks. It also follows that a number of reactor components needed for tokamak operation (e.g. current drive, feedback stabilization, disruption prevention) are not needed in stellarators, making this type of reactor and its operation simpler. Such results would have a large influence on selection of the final concept and the further evolution of the fusion programme. It is thus mandatory to substantiate the above points by further studies in more depth to allow the related conclusions to be reached.