Abstract
As one of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) primary operation modes, the hybrid mode aims at establishing plasmas with significant fusion power and low loop voltage to drive an inductive current to test reactor-relevant components in extended pulse lengths at high neutron fluence. In this paper, predictive modeling of the hybrid mode is presented. The potential of hybrid modes is investigated with respect to fusion performance and the non-inductive current drive fraction in ITER. Simulations are performed with the ASTRA transport code by employing a physics-based heat transport model. Here, the particle transport is prescribed. The effect of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) to establish a low magnetic shear in the center of the plasma is also discussed. The simulations show that fusion gains and the non-inductive current drive fractions of up to 8.4 and 49 %, respectively, can be achieved in hybrid modes at ITER.
