ITER plasma performance assessment on the basis of newly-proposed scalings

Abstract

The ITER plasma performance is assessed on the basis of the newly-proposed confinement scalings, using 1.5D simulations with the ASTRA code. In the simulations, the transport coefficients are adjusted to satisfy HH ≡ τE/τE(scaling) = 1 for each scaling. It is shown that for plasma current I = 15 MA and plasma minor radius a = 2 m for each scaling there exists an operational window within the range of moderate densities n/nG = 0.65–0.85 where nG is the Greenwald density nG (1020 m−3) = I/π a2. The fusion power Pfus = 250–600 MW can be obtained with neutral beam injection of 33 MW and ion cyclotron central heating of 0–20 MW. The operational windows predicted by the three scalings are close to each other. The fusion multiplication factor Q can achieve values in the range of 10–20 even with a more conservative assumption on helium pumping that corresponds to the ratio of the effective helium confinement time to the energy confinement time . The impact of enhanced particle confinement and increased threshold power for L to H mode transition on the ITER operational space is studied.