The Globus-M spherical tokamak has demonstrated practically all of the project objectives during the 15-year period of operation. The main factor limiting further progress in plasma performance is a relatively low toroidal magnetic field. The maximum toroidal magnetic field achieved on Globus-M was 0.4 T with the exception of a limited number of shots with 0.55 T, which led to damage of the toroidal field coil in 2002. The increase of the magnetic field up to 1.0 T together with the plasma current up to 0.5 MA will result in the significant enhancement of the operating parameters in the upgraded Globus-M2 machine. The experimental program will be focused on plasma heating and non-inductive current drive and will contribute to the creation of a physical and technological base for the compact fusion neutron source development. In the article a brief overview of the physical background for the machine upgrade is outlined. The current status of the project implementation is described. First experimental results on moderate magnetic field increase from 0.4 T up to 0.5 T in the existing Globus-M machine are discussed. The improvement of plasma confinement as well as enhancement of efficiency of the beam driven current is observed.
球形托卡马克Globus-M在15年的运行期间已经证明了几乎所有的项目目标。限制等离子体性能进一步发展的主要因素是相对较低的环向磁场。Globus-M上实现的最高环向磁场为0.4 T，但仅有有限次数的0.55 T放电，这导致了2002年环向场线圈的损坏。在升级后的Globus-M2装置中，将磁场提高到1.0 T以及等离子体电流提高到0.5 MA将显著提升运行参数。实验计划将聚焦于等离子体加热和非感应电流驱动，并将为紧凑型聚变中子源开发的物理和技术基础做出贡献。本文简要概述了装置升级的物理背景，描述了项目实施的当前状态，并讨论了在现有Globus-M装置上将磁场从中等程度从0.4 T提高到0.5 T的首批实验结果。观察到等离子体约束的改善以及束驱动电流效率的提升。