ITPA Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group

Scope

The scope of the Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group is to contribute to establishing operational scenarios in burning plasma experiments, particularly candidate scenarios in ITER. These include standard inductive operation, hybrid operation and steady-state operation. Towards this end, the group shall encourage and coordinate international collaboration on experimental code development and modelling activities. The group shall identify and formulate research priorities for related physics R&D. Based on these activities, the group shall recommend physics guidelines and methodologies for physics and technical design of burning plasma experiments. The group will promote publications and presentations on its activities.

Tasks

Through experimental, numerical and theoretical studies related to and organized by the Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group, the following tasks will be pursued:

• Develop and establish operation scenarios, especially those foreseen in ITER, with emphasis on:
  • Safe and reliable plasma break-down, current ramp-up, current ramp-down and plasma termination
  • Safe and reliable sustainment of the current flat-top, with identification of operational boundaries and performance
• Identify and evaluate the capabilities of actuators—heating and current drive, fuelling, particle exhaust, (seed) impurity control and angular momentum injection—for achieving identified scenarios
• Assess development of integrated plasma control procedures, especially for achieving steady-state operation in ITER and future burning plasmas (e.g., demonstration of burn control) with emphasis on real-time control
• Evaluate and propose suggestions for plasma development in ITER with emphasis on the consistency between plasma/scenario development program and hardware status for each phase of machine operation
• Promote integrated modelling activities for ITER scenarios, with emphasis on validating the available scenario modelling codes and exploring the operational boundaries for the proposed scenarios for achieving ITER's goals