Assessment of Electron-Cyclotron-Current-Drive-Assisted Operation in DEMO

Abstract

The achievable efficiency for external current drive through electron-cyclotron (EC) waves in a demonstration tokamak reactor is discussed. Two possible reactor designs, one for steady state and one for pulsed operation, are considered. It is found that for midplane injection the achievable current drive efficiency is limited by secondharmonic absorption at levels consistent with previous studies. Propagation through the second-harmonic region can be reduced by moving the launch position to the high-field side (this can be obtained by injecting the beam from an upper port in the vacuum vessel). In this case, beam tracing calculations deliver values for the EC current drive efficiency approaching those usually reported for neutral beam current drive.