Review of recent D-T experiments from TFTR

An extensive set of deuterium-tritium (D-T) experiments has been carried out on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), using nearly equal concentrations of deuterium and tritium. The fusion power has been increased to 9.3 MW, using 34 MW of neutral-beam heating, in a supershot discharge and to 6.7 MW in a high-pp discharge following a current rampdown. Extensive lithium pellet injection has increased the confinement time to 0.27 s and enabled higher current operation in both supershot and high-pp discharges. The energy confinement time, τE, was observed to increase in D-T, relative to D plasmas, by 20% and the ni(0)Ti(0)τE product by 55%. The improvement in thermal confinement was caused primarily by a decrease in ion heat conductivity in both supershot and limiter-H-mode discharges. ICRF heating of a D-T plasma, using the second harmonic of tritium, has been demonstrated. First measurements of the confined alpha particles have been performed and found to be in good agreement with TRANSP simulations. Initial measurements of the alpha ash profile have been compared with simulations using particle transport coefficients from He gas puffing experiments. The loss of alpha particles to a detector at the bottom of the vessel is well described by the first-orbit loss mechanism. No loss due to alpha-particle-driven instabilities has yet been observed. The TFIR experiments were able to challenge and confirm several of the underlying assumptions of the ITER design