MANTA and more: Exploring the negative triangularity reactor operating space with integrated modeling

A seminar by Haley Wilson

Abstract: Plasmas with negative triangularity (NT) can access high confinement and have power-handling characteristics desirable for a fusion pilot plant (FPP). This talk will discuss the continued optimization of an NT FPP based on MANTA: a high field, radiative, integrated NT FPP concept extending from the plasma core to the magnet structures [1]. MANTA is designed to have fusion power Pfus = 450 MW with a peak divertor heat flux of only 2.8 MW/m2, a tritium breeding ratio of 1.15, and 90 MWe of net electricity with 40 MW of ICRF heating. MANTA utilizes high temperature superconducting magnets and a FliBe blanket, enabling mean magnet lifetimes of over 3110 MW-yrs, and has a projected overnight total cost of $3.4 billion. Informed by NT experiments, boundary conditions that lie between those of traditional L-mode and H-mode plasmas are employed in a core integrated modeling framework using TGLF to find NT operating points with plasma fusion gain above 10 at various input powers. An NT FPP would not be constrained to maintain PSOL above the L-H power threshold, allowing us to find the impurity fraction that maximizes Pfus for a given PSOL 400 MW while maintaining PSOL < 50 MW. We will discuss future work of extending select operating points within these parameters to full-plant demonstration using the multi-fidelity whole-device integrated modeling framework FREDA.

[1] The MANTA Collaboration et al 2024 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 66 105006

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