MHD stability of tokamak plasmas

This paper will give an overview of the some of the methods which are used to simulate the ideal MHD properties of tokamak plasmas. A great deal of the research in this field is necessarily numerical and the substantial progress made during the past several years has roughly paralleled the continuing availability of more advanced supercomputers. These have become essential to accurately model the complex configurations necessary for achieving MHD stable reactor grade conditions. Appropriate tokamak MHD equilibria will be described. Then the stability properties is discussed in some detail, emphasizing the difficulties of obtaining stable high β discharges in plasmas in which the current is mainly ohmically driven and thus demonstrating the need for tailoring the current and pressure profiles of the plasma away from the ohmic state. The outline of this paper will roughly follow the physics development to attain the second region of stability in the PBX-M device at The Princeton Plasmas Physics Laboratory