Enhancement of Engineering Advantages in Tokamak Reactor Operation Assisted by RF Waves

摘要

The impact of RF assisted operation scenarios on reactor design were studied. These scenarios include RF assisted, long-pulsed operation and quasi-steady state operation. Burn time, required energy and overturning force on a TF coil are the parameters examined. Two kinds of plasmas were employed; a highly elongated plasma with double null poloidal divertor and a circular plasma with mechanical (pumped) limiter. The RF assisted operation scenarios allowed the burn time to be increased from 300 seconds to 2100 seconds for an elliptical plasma and from 700 seconds to 1500 seconds for a circular plasma. These increases were for a fixed reactor size. In addition, the energy consumption for the same fusion energy preduction was reduced to 1/3 for the elliptical plasma and to 1/2 for the circular plasma. However, the total energy required for an elliptical plasma is several times greater than for a circular plasma. The burn time and energy consumption differed little between RF assisted operation and quasi-steady state operation. The cyclic stress amplitude due to overturning forces on a TF coil was reduced to negligible levels by introducing RF assisted operation scenario. (Atomindex citation 17:046071)