Simulations of the Neutral-beam-induced Rotation, Radial Electric Field, and Flow Shearing Rate in Next-step Burning Plasmas
Author: R.V. Budny
Date of PPPL Report: August 2002
Presented at: the 2002 Fusion Energy Sciences Summer Study, 8-19 July, 2002, Snowmass, Colorado, USA.
Toroidal rotation of plasmas in present tokamaks is beneficial for increasing the stability to wall-induced MHD and appears to reduce the anomalous transport associated with micro-turbulence. This paper calculates the toroidal rotation expected from neutral-beam injection in the proposed FIRE and ITER-FEAT tokamak reactors. Self-consistent burning plasmas for these tokamaks have been constructed using the TRANSP plasma analysis code. Neutral-beam injection has been proposed for FIRE and ITER-FEAT. The neutral-beam-induced torques are computed, and assumptions for the anomalous transport of toroidal angular momentum are used to calculate the toroidal rotation profiles. The central Mach numbers are about 3-8%. The ratio of the rotation speed to the Alfvén speed is less than 1%. Assuming neoclassical poloidal rotation and force balance, the radial electric field and flow shearing rate are calculated. Peak shearing rates near the outboard edge are in the 10-100 krad/s range.