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Title: Ideal MHD Stability Characteristics of Advanced Operating Regimes in Spherical Torus Plasmas and the Role of High Harmonic Fast Waves

Conference ·
OSTI ID:7675

The ARIES reactor study group has found an economically attractive ST-based reactor configuration with: A = 1.6, {kappa} = 3.4, {delta} = 0.65, {beta} = 50%, {beta}{sub N} = 7.3, f{sub BS} = 0.95, R{sub 0} = 3.2 meters, B{sub t0} = 2.08 Tesla, and I{sub P} = 28.5 MA which yields a cost of electricity of approximately 80mils/kWh. MHD stability analysis finds that a broad pressure profile is optimal for wall-stabilizing the pressure driven kink modes typical of such configurations, and that wall stabilization is crucial to achieving the high {beta} needed for an economical power plant. The 6MW high-harmonic fast wave system presently being installed on NSTX should allow real-time control of the plasma {beta}, and in combination with NBI may permit experimental investigations of the effect of pressure profile peaking on MHD stability in the near-term. In the longer term, ejection of ions through resonant interaction with HHFW might be used to induce a controllable edge radial electric field with potentially interesting effects on edge MHD and confinement.

Research Organization:
Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-76CH03073
OSTI ID:
7675
Report Number(s):
Cfpaper-4033; TRN: US0101808
Resource Relation:
Conference: European Physical Society, Maastricht (NL), 06/14/1999--06/18/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1 Jun 1999
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English