Predictive simulations of ITER including neutral beam driven toroidal rotation

Abstract

Predictive simulations of ITER [R. Aymar et al., Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 44, 519 (2002)], discharges are carried out for the 15MA high confinement mode (H-mode) scenario using PTRANSP, the predictive version of the TRANSP code. The thermal and toroidal momentum transport equations are evolved using turbulent and neoclassical transport models. A predictive model is used to compute the temperature and width of the H-mode pedestal. The ITER simulations are carried out for neutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasmas, for ion cyclotron resonant frequency (ICRF) heated plasmas, and for plasmas heated with a mix of NBI and ICRF. It is shown that neutral beam injection drives toroidal rotation that improves the confinement and fusion power production in ITER. The scaling of fusion power with respect to the input power and to the pedestal temperature is studied. It is observed that, in simulations carried out using the momentum transport diffusivity computed using the GLF23 model [R. Waltz et al., Phys. Plasmas 4, 2482 (1997)], the fusion power increases with increasing injected beam power and central rotation frequency. It is found that the ITER target fusion power of 500MW is produced with 20MW of NBI power when the pedestal temperature is 3.5keV.