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of the Lawson criterion (triple product of plasma density, confinement time, and temperature). Accordingly, verification of the observed Te scaling law will be the key to future research on how to further improve plasma performance.
In the C-2/C-2U experiments, excluding the quasi-stationary magnetic field coils, all main systems, including the plasma guns and the NBI systems, are operated in pulsed-discharge mode. Therefore, the FRC plasma performance obtained in C-2U, such as high confinement, sustained equilibrium lifetime of ~5+ ms, and diamagnetism time of ~10+ ms, is limited by hardware constraints such as stored energies in the plasma-gun and NB power supplies. Therefore, in the next TAE experimental device, C-2W (Fig. 5), we plan to extend the pulse duration up to ~30 ms by increasing the stored energy of each main subsystem’s power supply. In addition to the pulse duration, the next device will have the following system upgrades aimed at better confinement, longer lifetimes, and higher temperatures: (i) higher injected power and optimum beam energies of the NBI system, (ii) installation of inner divertors for improvement of the open-field-line (SOL) plasma performance, (iii) fast external equilibrium/mirror-coil current ramp-up capability for field and plasma ramp up, and (iv) installation of trim/saddle coils for active feedback control of the FRC plasma. The C-2W experiment is currently under construction and scheduled to commence physics operations in the summer 2017. It is the strength of TAE and corporate research that we can iterate experiments and device upgrades/improvements with such a rapid cycle, and we are excited to continue contributing aggressively to the development and progress of fusion research.
Reference
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