Initial studies of confinement, adiabatic compression, and neutral-beam heating in TFTR

The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) is intended to achieve approximate energy breakeven in D-T plasmas. Construction approval was received in March 1976, and the first plasma was produced in December 1982. Three major experimental run periods, the last ending April 1985, have yielded experimental results on confinement and heating that extend the scaling laws of smaller machines. The plasma parameters in TFTR are now approaching those required for breakeven in unthermalized, two-component regimes. They span the range from high-density operation with n e (0)τ E ≈ 4 × 10 19 m −3 ·s to a low-density regime with T i (0) ≈ (9±2)keV. The maximum product n e (0)τ E T i (0) of about 9 × 10 19 m −3 ·s·keV was obtained at a central density, 1.1 × 10 20 m −3 , by means of pellet injection.