Influence of reactor operations on the design and performance of tokamaks with solid breeder blankets

Conceptual tokamak studies have focused primarily on the design and performance issues of systems essentially operating at full rated power. Operational aspects of tokamak reactors and the characteristics and responses of system components during power variations are equally important. This is an overview of an extensive effort to determine the influence of reactor operations on the design and performance of tokamaks. The authors also report on a comparison of our findings between tokamaks and tandem mirrors, using for the latter, the recent START/TM study