Abstract
The goal of nuclear fusion using magnetic confinement is to confine a plasma consisting of hydrogen isotopes and heat it to temperatures that allow the energy released from the fusion reactions to largely compensate the energy loss from the plasma due to convection, conduction and radiation so that stationary nuclear burning of the fuel is achieved with net energy output. Presently, the reaction envisaged is the fusion of Deuterium and Tritium, which releases the fusion power P fus in He nuclei (\(\alpha\)–particles) of 3.5 MeV and neutrons of 14.1 MeV. In this chapter, we discuss optimization of power balance for this reaction in conventional and advanced tokamak regimes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In plasma physics, the temperature is usually expressed in terms of the thermal energy, i.e. kBT, where 1Â eV corresponds to 11,600Â K.
- 2.
In a single particle picture, the field lines must be helical to compensate for losses induced by the drift of charged particles in a purely toroidal field.
- 3.
Recent experiments on the RFX reversed field pinch, when run as a tokamak, have clearly demonstrated that with adequate feedback control by additional coils, a tokamak discharge can in principle be run at qa < 2.
- 4.
For typical parameter values of present and future tokamaks, this will roughly be of the order of 1020 m−3.
- 5.
This region is usually called the Scrape Off Layer (SOL) and the interaction with the wall will occur in the ‘limiter’ or ‘divertor’ zone.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zohm, H. (2015). Introduction to Tokamak Operational Scenarios. In: Igochine, V. (eds) Active Control of Magneto-hydrodynamic Instabilities in Hot Plasmas. Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics, vol 83. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44222-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44222-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44221-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44222-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)