Advanced tokamak (AT) scenarios applying additional heating during the current ramp (early-heating) usually require many iterations if developed fully empirically. To reduce the required experimental time, a model has been developed in the ASTRA framework, capable of doing predictive simulations of the relevant parameters. As scenario development requires fast iterations and inter-discharge runs, a sufficiently short run-time is required. While using a simplified transport model to achieve this, comparisons to experimental data from ASDEX-Upgrade (AUG) still show good agreement. Using this model, a new high performance early-heating AT scenario has been developed and successfully run on AUG with the results matching the predictions.
The European Integrated Tokamak Modelling (ITM) effort: achievements and first physics results