Development of high-current baseline scenario for high deuterium–tritium fusion performance at JET

The development of a high current baseline scenario ( I p = 3.5 M A , q 95 ≈ 3.0 , β N < 2 ) in deuterium (D), tritium (T) and deuterium-tritium (D-T) for high D-T fusion performance at JET with Be/W wall is described. We show that a suitable scenario capable of delivering up to 10 MW of fusion power, depending on the auxiliary heating power available, was successfully developed in D. However, when translated to T and D-T, the same scenario could not be sustained for the target duration of 5 s due to the impossibility to achieve the stationary compound edge localized modes regime necessary to flush the tungsten (W) from the plasma and control the density. Nevertheless, a peak fusion power in the order of 8 MW, with 60% of the power coming from thermal fusion reactions, was obtained in D-T at 3.5 MA, with ≈ 30 MW of neutral beam injection heating and 3-4 MW of ion cyclotron resonance heating, in line with the predictions obtained with the JINTRAC integrated scenario modelling suite of codes equipped with the QuaLiKiZ transport model and based on the extrapolation of the performance of similar D plasmas.