Improved confinement and current drive of high temperature field reversed configurations in the new translation, confinement, and sustainment upgrade device

Journal Article · Thu May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2837056· OSTI ID:21120356

Guo, H Y; Hoffman, A L; Milroy, R D; Steinhauer, L C; Brooks, R D; Deards, C L; Grossnickle, J A; Melnik, P; Miller, K E; Vlases, G C ^[1]

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1. University of Washington, Redmond Plasma Physics Laboratory, 14700 NE 95th Street, Suite 100, Redmond, Washington 98052 (United States)

Previous work in the translation, confinement, and sustainment (TCS) device [Hoffman, Guo, Slough et al., Fusion Sci. Technol. 41, 92 (2002)] demonstrated formation and steady-state sustainment of field reversed configurations (FRC) by rotating magnetic fields (RMF). However, in TCS the plasma temperature was limited to several 10 s of eV due to high impurity content. These impurities are greatly reduced in the new TCS upgrade device (TCSU), which was built with a bakable, ultrahigh vacuum chamber, and advanced wall conditioning capabilities. This led to dramatic improvements in TCSU with temperatures well over 200 eV, using simple even-parity RMF drive. The higher temperatures, coupled with reduced recycling, allowed plasma to enter into a collisionless, high-{zeta} (ratio of average electron rotation frequency to RMF frequency) regime. These new FRC states exhibit the following key features: (1) Dramatic improvement in current drive efficiency with {zeta} approaching 100%, for the first time in TCSU; (2) up to threefold increase in global energy confinement time; and (3) significant reduction in transport rates, accompanied by a striking transition from a Bohm-type transport to a lower hybrid driftlike transport that scales better than gyro-Bohm and is very favorable for the next step FRC development.

• OSTI ID: 21120356
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 15, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2837056; (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
CONFINEMENT TIME
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
ELECTRONS
EQUIPMENT
FIELD-REVERSED THETA PINCH DEVICES
IMPURITIES
ION TEMPERATURE
LOWER HYBRID CURRENT DRIVE
LOWER HYBRID HEATING
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
REVERSE-FIELD PINCH
REVERSED-FIELD PINCH DEVICES
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS