Long Pulse H-Mode Scenarios Sustained by RF Heating on EAST**supported by the National Magnetic Confinement Fusion Program of China (Nos. 2014GB106000, 2014GB106001, and 2014GB106003) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11275234, 11321092, 11305215, 11305208, 11405214) and CAS Hefei Center for Scientific Research Program of China (No. 2015SRG-HSC010)

Abstract

EAST has demonstrated its capability of long pulse operation using RF heating (LHCD and ICRF) in past experiments. One key issue to realize the long pulse H-mode experiments is to sustain the plasma current for steady state operation. Based on the calculations of the transport code ONETWO and its coupled RF code GENRAY, two scenarios have been proposed to achieve the 10 s H-mode plasma with Ip=400 kA, < ne >=4.5×1019 m−3, βN=2, and the 100 s H-mode plasma with Ip=280 kA, < ne >=3.5×1019 m−3, βN = 1.8 recently. The current drive of lower hybrid wave is an important issue in the two scenarios. An experimental result on lower hybrid current drive in H-mode plasmas on EAST is also presented.