The pre–fusion power operation 1 phase of ITER is planned to be characterized by electron cyclotron resonance heating only. Under the assumption that the access to H–mode is determined by a critical ion heat flux at the plasma edge, full–radius ASTRA simulations with the TGLF–SAT2 transport model are performed in order to compute the ion heat flux produced by the thermal exchange between electrons and ions in different operational conditions. Both hydrogen and deuterium plasmas at 5 MA are considered, respectively at 1.8 T and 2.65 T, corresponding to one third and half of the nominal maximum magnetic field. Different levels of electron cyclotron heating power are considered in sets of simulations with increasing values of the electron line averaged density. The predictions are compared with the currently available scaling of the critical ion heat flux. In hydrogen, 20 MW of electron heating power are predicted to allow H–mode access in a vanishingly small density window, whereas 30 MW and 40 MW would allow more substantial H–mode operational windows. Despite the fact that in deuterium plasmas the thermal exchange between electrons and ions is smaller by the hydrogen to deuterium mass ratio compared to hydrogen plasmas, the lower H–mode power threshold in deuterium leads to the prediction that an even broader and more robust domain to access H–mode is obtained at half field at 40 MW in deuterium as compared to operation in hydrogen at one third of the maximum magnetic field, even at the same power.
Deuterium-tritium operation in magnetic confinement experiments: results and underlying physics