Progress in Physics Basis and its Impact on ITER

This paper summarises recent progress in the physics basis and its impact on the expected performance of ITER. Significant progress has been made in many outstanding issues and in the development of hybrid and steady state operation scenarios, leading to increased confidence of achieving ITER’s goals. Experiments show that tailoring the current profile can improve confinement over the standard H-mode and allow an increase in beta up to the no-wall limit at safety factors ~ 4. Extrapolation to ITER suggests that at the reduced plasma current of ~ 12MA, high Q > 10 and long pulse (>1000 s) operation is possible with benign ELMs. Analysis of disruption scenarios has been performed based on guidelines on current quench rates and halo currents, derived from the experimental database. The estimated electromagnetic forces on the in-vessel components are below the design target values, confirming the robustness of the ITER design against disruption