High-confinement mode

Abstract: Enhanced confinement modes up to a toroidal field of BT=8 T have been studied with up to 3.5 MW of radiofrequency (rf) heating power in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) at 80 MHz. H-mode is observed when the edge temperature exceeds a threshold value. The high confinement mode (H-mode) with higher confinement enhancement factors (H) and longer duration became possible after boronization by reducing the radiated power from the main plasma. A quasi-steady state with high confinement (H=2.0), high normalized beta (βN=1.5), low radiated power fraction (Pradmain/Ploss=0.3), and low effective charge (Zeff=1.5) has been obtained in Enhanced Dα H-mode. This type of H-mode has enhanced levels of continuous Dα emission and very little or no edge localized mode (ELM) activity, and reduced core particle confinement time relative to ELM-free H-mode. The pellet enhanced performance (PEP) mode is obtained by combining core fueling with pellet injection and core heating. A highly peaked pressure profile with a central value of 8 atmospheres was observed. The steep pressure gradient drives off-axis bootstrap current, resulting in a shear reversed safety factor (q) profile. Suppression of sawteeth appears to be important in maintaining the highly peaked pressure profile. Lithium pellets were found to be more effective than deuterium pellets in raising q0.

Abstract: Over the past several years, tokamak neutral beam injection experiments have evolved from the brute force study of the effects of global discharge characteristics (Ip, ne, Pheat, etc.) on energy confinement to the appreciation that there are effects more subtle, yet controllable, that may influence confinement dramatically. While this evolution from first to second generation experiments is derived from an empirical understanding of ‘‘low’’ and ‘‘high’’ energy confinement modes and how to achieve them operationally, the underlying physics is still unknown. Several theories with different physical bases appear to describe the global scaling of the low confinement mode discharges quite well. On the other hand, little agreement has been found between theoretical and experimentally deduced values of local transport coefficients. While it is known operationally how to achieve any one of several types of high confinement mode discharges, here too, the underlying physics of the transport associated with these m...

Abstract: Time‐dependent simulations of energy, particle, and momentum transport are presented, which show improved confinement similar to the high mode (H mode). The transport model incorporates the suppression of turbulence by sheared flows, which are self‐consistently calculated. Constraints on the turbulence model from the time evolution of the temperature, density, and velocity profiles are discussed. A regime similar to the very high confinement mode (VH mode) is found to result at higher heating power due to an increase in the width of the transport barrier. Coneutral beam injection lowers the power required for VH mode substantially due to the toroidal rotation shear. The possible role of edge momentum sources such as ion orbit loss is considered, and a comparison between biased probe‐induced and heating‐induced H modes is made.

Abstract: The theoretical prediction of density profiles in tokamak plasmas plays a major role for the prediction of the plasma performance in a fusion reactor. The density peaking measured in plasmas in high confinement mode of the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak [O. Gruber, H.-S. Bosch, S. Gunter et al., Nucl. Fusion 39, 1321 (1999)] is shown to decrease with increasing collisionality. This experimental behavior is explained with a theoretical fluid transport model for ion temperature gradient and trapped electron modes, GLF23, which includes a valid description of the effects of collisions on these instabilities. Collisionless reactive models, like the Weiland model, are in disagreement with the experimental observations. The difference between the predictions of the two models must be ascribed to collisionality. This has been ascertained by a detailed comparison of the physics content of the two models and by the implementation of modified, collisionless versions of the GLF23 model, which yield results analogous to those of the Weiland model and in disagreement with the experiment. It is shown that the anomalous particle pinch decreases with collisionality and the relative role of the neoclassical Ware pinch becomes important at high collisionality, that is close to the density limit in present large tokamak experiments, while it is practically negligible at low collisionality. The present results reconciliate apparently contradictory observations on the existence of an anomalous particle pinch collected so far in tokamaks.