A periodic enhancement of the microturbulence level by sawtooth relaxations has been detected by CO2 laser forward scattering in the TEXTOR tokamak. This feature is reproduced quantitatively by a heat transport code in which the anomalous electron transport coefficient is calculated self-consistently, following a theoretical model of the saturation of the dissipative trapped electron instability. The code also predicts a strong modulation of the heat flux throughout the plasma and a strong 'profile consistency' as demonstrated elsewhere by continuous temperature measurements. A simple interpretation of these results is given. The calculated global plasma parameters, such as the energy confinement time and the loop voltage, are in good agreement with the measured values.
Model-based estimation of tokamak plasma profiles and physics parameters: integration with improved equilibrium reconstruction and experimental data