Operation of a tokamak reactor in the radiative improved mode

Abstract

The operation of a nuclear fusion reactor has been simulated within a model based on experimental results obtained at the TEXTOR-94 tokamak and other facilities in which quasistationary regimes were achieved with long confinement times, high densities, and absence of the edge-localized mode. The radiative improved mode of confinement studied in detail at the TEXTOR-94 tokamak is the most interesting such regime. One of the most important problems of modern tokamaks is the problem of a very high thermal load on a divertor (or a limiter). This problem is quite easily solved in the radiative improved mode. Since a significant fraction of the thermal energy is reemitted by an impurity, the thermal loading is significantly reduced. As the energy confinement time τ_E at high densities in the indicated mode is significantly larger than the time predicted by the scaling of ITERH-98P(y, 2), ignition can be achieved in a facility much smaller than the ITER facility at plasma temperatures below 20 keV. The revealed decrease in the degradation of the confinement time τ_E with an increase in the introduced power has been analyzed.