Ohmic H-mode studies in TUMAN-3

Abstract

The spontaneous transition from Ohmically heated limiter discharges into the regime with improved confinement termed as "Ohmic H-mode" has been investigated in "TUMAN-3". The typical signatures of H-mode in tokamaks with powerful auxiliary heating have been observed: sharp drop of Dalpha radiation with simultaneous increase in the electron density and stored energy, suppression of the density fluctuations and establishing the steep gradient near the periphery. The crucial role of the radial electric field in the L-H transition was found in the experiments with boundary biasing. The possibility of initiating the H-mode using single pellet injection was demonstrated. In Ohmic H-mode strong dependencies of tau E on plasma current and on input power and weak dependence on density were found. Thermal energy confinement time enhanced by a factor of 10 compared to predictions of Neo-Alcator scaling. Longest energy confinement time (30 ms) was obtained in the small tokamak TUMAN-3. Absolute values of the energy confinement time are in agreement with scaling proposed for description of the ELM-free H-modes in devices with powerful auxiliary heating ("DIII-D/JET H-mode" scaling).