JET-P(98)51
Bulk Ion Heating with ICRH in JET DT Plasmas
Reactor relevant ICRH scenarios have been assessed during D-T experiments on the JET tokamak using H-mode divertor discharges with ITER-like shapes and safety factors. Deuterium minority heating in tritium plasmas was demonstrated for the first time. For 9% deuterium, an ICRH power of 6MW gave 1.66MW of fusion power from reactions between suprathermal deuterons and thermal tritons. The Q-value of the steady state discharge reached 0.22 for the length of the RF flat top (2.7 s), corresponding to three plasma energy replacement times. The Doppler broadened neutron spectrum showed a deuteron energy of 125keV which was optimum for fusion and close to the critical energy. Thus strong bulk ion heating was obtained at the same time as high fusion efficiency. Deuterium fractions around 20% produced the strongest ion heating together with a strong reduction of the suprathermal deuteron tail. The edge localised modes (ELMs) had low amplitude and high frequency and each ELM transported less plasma energy content than the 1% required by ITER. The energy confinement time, on the ITERH97-P scale, was 0.90 which is sufficient for ignition in ITER. He3 minority heating, in approximately 50:50 D:T plasmas with up to 10% He3, also demonstrated strong bulk ion heating. Central ion temperatures up to 13keV were achieved together with central electron temperatures up to 12keV. The normalised H-mode confinement time was 0.95. Second harmonic tritium heating produced energetic tritons above the critical energy. This scheme heats the electrons in JET unlike in ITER where the lower power density will allow mainly ion heating. The inverted scenario of tritium minority ICRH in a deuterium plasma was demonstrated as a successful heating method producing both suprathermal neutrons and bulk ion heating. Theoretical calculations of the D-T reactivity mostly give excellent agreement with the measured reaction rates.