On lithium walls and the performance of magnetic fusion devices

Abstract

It is shown that lithium walls resulting in zero-recycling regimes at the edge of magnetic fusion device can cause dramatic improvements of core plasma performance. The plasma temperature at the wall in these regimes is much larger than in conventional tokamaks. It reduces the core temperature gradient and, thus, related anomalous transport, allowing an increase in the achievable beta to the level ∼20%, due to wall stabilization and second stability core. Fusion relevant plasma temperature over entire core and high beta results in a strong enhancement of fusion power density. Modeling of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor performance in zero-recycling regimes shows so significant improvement that fusion power increases with no apparent limits due to elimination of the strong core temperature gradient and associated turbulent transport and due to expansion of the burning zone to the entire cross section.