Integrated scenario with type-III ELMy H-mode edge: extrapolation to ITER

One of the most severe problems for fusion reactors is the power load on the plasma facing components. The challenge is to develop operation scenarios, which combine sufficient energy confinement with benign heat loads to the plasma facing components. The radiative type-III ELMy H-mode seems a possible solution for such an integrated ITER scenario. Nitrogen seeded type-III ELMy H-modes for the standard inductive scenario and the high beta stationary hybrid scenario are investigated with respect to their transient and steady-state power fluxes to the divertor, confinement properties, edge operational space, core operational space, plasma purity and MHD behaviour. A large database of highly radiative type-III ELMy H-modes on JET is used for extrapolations to ITER. On this basis the transient heat load should be acceptable for ITER. It was found that the scaling of the confinement time with respect to the ion gyroradius is close to the gyro-Bohm scaling. Scalings with respect to the plasma collisionality suggest that the confinement will be good enough for an ITER scenario at 17 MA with a power amplification factor (Q) of 10 and might be marginally good enough for a Q = 10 scenario at 15 MA. Those extrapolations are supported by simulations with an integrated core/edge model COREDIV. In addition the hybrid scenario with type-III edge localized modes has been proven to have improved edge conditions without any modification of the central plasma current profile, indicating it is compatible with a high beta operation for a steady-state ITER Q = 5 scenario.