Abstract
A 0-D model is developed to explore, from the physics point of view, the design options for future reactor grade tokamaks at values of the confining magnetic field exceeding the present technology. It is found that steady state devices with consistent exhaust parameters can indeed be designed at more compact geometry than presently envisaged, but the plasma performance, in particular the stability, is still at the upper end of what has been achieved in present day experiments, i.e. requires an ‘advanced tokamak’ approach.
Highlights
The performance of magnetically confined fusion plasmas usually increases with increasing magnetic field B for given size, expressed by the torus major radius R
We have analysed how different optimization strategies developed for reactor-grade tokamaks with conventional magnetic field values would extrapolate to higher B
A low q95, low bN approach, which is applied to maximize fusion power in pulsed ITER discharges, does not extrapolate to steady state at higher B since the gain in QCD is relatively small when moving on the exhaust similarity line
Summary
The performance of magnetically confined fusion plasmas usually increases with increasing magnetic field B for given size, expressed by the torus major radius R. We apply the model described in the previous section to study the possible parameter space of future reactor-grade tokamaks allowing high toroidal field and neglecting, for the moment, the present technological limitations to the increase of the field.
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