Impact of Neutral Beam and Plasma Shaping on the Current Drive Efficiency and Fast Ion Losses in a Compact Tokamak FNS-ST

Abstract

Fusion neutron source (FNS)-spherical tokamak (ST) will be a FNS based on ST ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$R =0.5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> m, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$a =0.3$ </tex-math></inline-formula> m, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k =2.75$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B =1.5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> T) with a steady-state neutron yield ~1018 n/s. The noninductive current drive and neutron generation is to be maintained by neutral beam injection (NBI). Beam in toroids (BTOR) code (Python) is used to reproduce NBI and plasma shaping with high degree of detail and to perform parametric studies of neutral beam (NB) driven effects. The beam model light neutral beam (LNB) is inherited from the original beam transmission (BTR) code, used since 2005 for NBI design and optimizations. The BTOR methodology combines NB statistical description with high-performance analytical models of particle tracing, which allows one to get results several orders faster, if compared to the conventional (Monte–Carlo) approach, and still with a good agreement. The results obtained for the FNS-ST device prove that the entire beam efficiency highly depends on the beam–plasma mutual size and shaping, including the beam cross section and aiming, plasma aspect ratio, elongation, and triangularity. The results are especially important for a steady-state current drive and fusion control in low aspect ratio tokamaks; the BTOR method is also applicable to a conventional tokamak design.