Abstract:
The influence of toroidal magnetic field on the energy confinement time $\tau_E$ in the ohmic H-mode has been studied in the TUMAN-3M tokamak with low magnetic field. The experiments were performed at a toroidal magnetic field of $B_T$ = 0.68–1.0 T, which is about twice as large as that (0.25–0.5 T) studied in analogous experiments on the NSTX and MAST spherical tokamaks. The results are indicative of a strong dependence of the energy confinement time on toroidal magnetic field: $\tau_E\propto B^{(0.75-0.8)}_T$. This scaling is much stronger than that projected for the ITER ($\tau_{E_{IPB98}}\propto B^{0.15}_T$), while being somewhat weaker than the scalings observed on the NSTX and MAST devices. The stronger (as compared to the ITER scaling) dependence of $\tau_E$ on $B_T$ observed in these experiments should be taken into account in designing thermonuclear facilities with small aspect ratios and toroidal magnetic fields–in particular, fusion neutron sources.
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