AC operation of a D-3He tokamak fusion reactor

We propose an inductive alternating current (AC) D-3He tokamak reactor (R=9.5 m, a=2.8 m, Bt=10 T and Ip=53.6 MA), operated in the first stability regime, with a small current-drive power ∼500 kW in the plasma side, and ∼2 MW in the transformer side. The high electron temperature Te(0)∼62.5 keV together with the high bootstrap current fraction >70% decreases the plasma resistance (to less than 1 nΩ) and the loop voltage (∼10 mV range), and then prolongs the pulse length to more than 15 hours. The ignition characteristics of a D-3He tokamak reactor are analyzed by the operation path method on the PhtτE2-T plane and POPCON for different confinement scalings. (author)