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 tau(E)/tau(E)(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/n(G) = 0.65-0.85 where n(G) is the Greenwald density n(G)(10(20) m(-3)) = I/pi a(2). The fusion power P-fus = 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 tau(He)*/tau(E) = 5. The impact of enhanced particle confinement and increased threshold power for L to H mode transition on the ITER operational space is studied.