The role of the neutral beam fueling profile in the performance of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor and other tokamak plasmas

Abstract

Scalings for the stored energy and neutron yield, determined from experimental data, are applied to both deuterium-only and deuterium–tritium plasmas in different neutral-beam-heated operational domains in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor [Nucl. Fusion 25, 1167 (1985)]. The domain of the data considered includes the Supershot, high poloidal beta, low-mode, and limiter high-mode operational regimes, as well as discharges with a reversed magnetic shear configuration. The new important parameter in the present scaling is the peakedness of the heating beam fueling profile shape. Ion energy confinement and neutron production are relatively insensitive to other plasma parameters compared to the beam fueling peakedness parameter and the heating beam power when considering plasmas that are stable to magnetohydrodynamic modes. However, the stored energy of the electrons is independent of the beam fueling peakedness. The implication of the scalings based on this parameter is related to theoretical transport models such as radial electric field shear and ion temperature gradient marginality models. Similar physics interpretation is provided for beam heated discharges on other major tokamaks.