Evaluation of core beta effects on pedestal MHD stability in ITER and consequences for energy confinement

摘要

The maximum stable pedestal pressure has been shown to increase with core pressure and in combination with profile stiffness this can lead to a positive feedback mechanism. However, the effect is shown to saturate for high β in ASDEX-Upgrade [1]. This paper investigates whether this effect appears in ITER scenarios, using ideal MHD numerical codes HELENA and MISHKA for different ITER scenarios from inductive 7.5-15 MA plasmas to steady-state scenarios at 10 MA. No pedestal pressure saturation is found for inductive scenarios; on the contrary for the 10MA steady-state scenario the pedestal pressure is the same for a wide range of total β and is limited by low n kink-peeling modes. Finally, a comparison of the achievable pressure for various levels of core profile stiffness is made with the IPB98(y,2) scaling law.