Performance predictions of RF heated plasma in EAST

Abstract

Scenario development of high power L- and H-mode plasmas in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) tokamak is reported. The simulations use PTRANSP in combination with TSC to explore EAST plasmas with various radio frequency (RF) auxiliary heating methods, including ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH) and lower hybrid current drive. The GLF23 transport model is found to give a better fit to temperature measurements compared with the MMM95 and MMM08 models. A series of ICRH simulations are performed to optimize parameters of a new ICRH system in EAST. The highest plasma stored energy and other related plasma parameters using the current auxiliary power limits are predicted. The discharge length of high power plasma can be 8–200 s, depending on the volt–second consumption in different scenarios. Various phenomena are reported including the influence of different fractions of RF power on their deposition behavior, and on thermal diffusivity, the linear relation between q0 and LHW power fraction, different behavior of fast ions between L- and H-mode plasmas. The scenario development is predicted to improve the performance of EAST.