ITER plasma performance assessment on the basis of newly-proposed scalings

The ITER plasma performance is assessed on the basis of the newly-proposed confinement scalings, using 1.5D simulations with the ASTRA code. In the simulations, the transport coefficients are adjusted to satisfy HH ≡ τE/τE(scaling) = 1 for each scaling. It is shown that for plasma current I = 15 MA and plasma minor radius a = 2 m for each scaling there exists an operational window within the range of moderate densities n/nG = 0.65-0.85 where nG is the Greenwald density nG (1020 m-3) = I/π a2. The fusion power Pfus = 250-600 MW can be obtained with neutral beam injection of 33 MW and ion cyclotron central heating of 0-20 MW. The operational windows predicted by the three scalings are close to each other. The fusion multiplication factor Q can achieve values in the range of 10-20 even with a more conservative assumption on helium pumping that corresponds to the ratio of the effective helium confinement time to the energy confinement time τ*He/τE = 5. The impact of enhanced particle confinement and increased threshold power for L to H mode transition on the ITER operational space is studied