Increased confinement and beta by inductive poloidal current drive in the RFP

Technical Report · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/419957· OSTI ID:419957

Sarff, J S; Lanier, N E; Prager, S C; Stoneking, M R

Progress in understanding magnetic-fluctuation-induced transport in the reversed field pinch (RFP) has led to the idea of current profile control to reduce fluctuations and transport. With the addition of inductive poloidal current drive in the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST), the magnetic fluctuation amplitude is halved, leading to a four- to five-fold increase in the energy confinement time to {tau}{sub E}{approximately}5 ms as a result of both decreased plasma resistance and increased stored thermal energy. The record low fluctuation amplitude coincides with a record high electron temperature of {approximately}600 eV (for MST), and beta {beta} = 2{mu}{sub 0}

/ B(a){sup 2} increases from 6% to 8% compared with conventional MST RFP plasmas. Other improvements include increased particle confinement and impurity reduction. 19 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.

• Research Organization: Wisconsin Univ., Madison, WI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-96ER54345
• OSTI ID: 419957
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/54345--283; ON: DE97000177
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BETA RATIO
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
CONFINEMENT TIME
CONTROL
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
FLUCTUATIONS
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PLASMA
PLASMA IMPURITIES
REVERSE-FIELD PINCH
TURBULENCE