A STELLARATOR CONFIGURATION FOR REACTOR STUDIES

A helical coil winding law has been found for a stellarator with many of the desirable properties of the Helias. High performance computer codes make it possible to optimize the configuration over a parameter space of large dimension. For reactor applications an ample gap is provided between the coils and the plasma. Line tracing shows that the magnetic surfaces are robust. Non-linear stability at high beta is verified by equilibrium calculations in three dimensions. A neoclassical theory of transport taking quasi-neutrality into account predicts that energy confinement times sufficient for ignition can be achieved economically. For power plant studies a more attractive modular version of this concept called the MHH stellarator is under investigation.