Overview of Progress in LHD Experiments
Fusion Science and Technology / Volume 50 / Number 2 / August 2006 / Pages 136-145
Technical Paper / Stellarators / dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1229
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Remarkable progress to access the reactor-relevant regime has been made in a recent experiment in the Large Helical Device. Optimizing the rotational transform, the average beta value of 4.3%, which is the highest record among helical devices, was achieved. The high-performance plasma with a fusion triple product up to ~2.2 × 1019 m-3
keVs was sustained for >7 s by repetitive hydrogen pellet injection. With regard to steady-state operation, which is one of the key issues to realize a fusion reactor, discharges for >30 min were successfully sustained by ion cyclotron range of frequency heating with the aid of the magnetic axis swing technique to reduce the heat load to the plasma-facing component. In the discharge, the total input energy to the plasma reached 1.3 GJ, which also established a new record.
