International collaboration on development of a stellarator confinement database has progressed. More than 3000 data points from nine major stellarator experiments have been compiled. Robust dependences of the energy confinement time on the density and the heating power have been confirmed. Dependences on other operational parameters, i.e. the major and minor radii, magnetic field and the rotational transform , have been evaluated using inter-machine analyses. In order to express the energy confinement in a unified scaling law, systematic differences in each subgroup are quantified. An a posteriori approach using a confinement enhancement factor on ISS95 as a renormalizing configuration-dependent parameter yields a new scaling expression ISS04; . Gyro–Bohm characteristic similar to ISS95 has been confirmed for the extended database with a wider range of plasma parameters and magnetic configurations than in the study of ISS95. It has also been discovered that there is a systematic offset of energy confinement between magnetic configurations, and its measure correlates with the effective helical ripple of the external stellarator field. Full documentation of the International Stellarator Confinement Database is available at http://iscdb.nifs.ac.jp/ and http://www.ipp.mpg.de/ISS.

Demonstrating improved confinement of energetic ions is one of the key goals of the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. In the past campaigns, measuring confined fast ions has proven to be challenging. Future deuterium campaigns would open up the option of using fusion-produced neutrons to indirectly observe confined fast ions. There are two neutron populations: 2.45 MeV neutrons from thermonuclear and beam-target fusion, and 14.1 MeV neutrons from DT reactions between tritium fusion products and bulk deuterium. The 14.1 MeV neutron signal can be measured using a scintillating fiber neutron detector, whereas the overall neutron rate is monitored by common radiation safety detectors, for instance fission chambers. The fusion rates are dependent on the slowing-down distribution of the deuterium and tritium ions, which in turn depend on the magnetic configuration via fast ion orbits. In this work, we investigate the effect of magnetic configuration on neutron production rates in W7-X. The neutral beam injection, beam and triton slowing-down distributions, and the fusion reactivity are simulated with the ASCOT suite of codes. The results indicate that the magnetic configuration has only a small effect on the production of 2.45 MeV neutrons from DD fusion and, particularly, on the 14.1 MeV neutron production rates. Despite triton losses of up to 50 %, the amount of 14.1 MeV neutrons produced might be sufficient for a time-resolved detection using a scintillating fiber detector, although only in high-performance discharges.

After completing the main construction phase of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and successfully commissioning the device, first plasma operation started at the end of 2015. Integral commissioning of plasma start-up and operation using electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and an extensive set of plasma diagnostics have been completed, allowing initial physics studies during the first operational campaign. Both in helium and hydrogen, plasma breakdown was easily achieved. Gaining experience with plasma vessel conditioning, discharge lengths could be extended gradually. Eventually, discharges lasted up to 6 s, reaching an injected energy of 4 MJ, which is twice the limit originally agreed for the limiter configuration employed during the first operational campaign. At power levels of 4 MW central electron densities reached 3  ×  1019 m−3, central electron temperatures reached values of 7 keV and ion temperatures reached just above 2 keV. Important physics studies during this first operational phase include a first assessment of power balance and energy confinement, ECRH power deposition experiments, 2nd harmonic O-mode ECRH using multi-pass absorption, and current drive experiments using electron cyclotron current drive. As in many plasma discharges the electron temperature exceeds the ion temperature significantly, these plasmas are governed by core electron root confinement showing a strong positive electric field in the plasma centre.

Sheared flows have been experimentally studied in TJ-II plasmas. In lowdensity ECH plasmas, sheared flows can be easily controlled by changing the plasma density, thereby allowing the radial origin and evolution of the edge velocity shear layer to be studied. In high density NBI heated plasmas a negative radial electric field is observed that is dominated by the diamagnetic component. The shear of the negative radial electric field increases at the L-H transition by an amount that depends on the magnetic configuration and heating power. Magnetic configurations with and without a low order rational surface close to the plasma edge show differences that may be interpreted in terms of local changes in the radial electric field induced by the rational surface that could facilitate the L-H transition. Fluctuation measurements show a reduction in the turbulence level that is strongest at the position of maximum E r shear. High temporal and spatial resolution measurements indicate that turbulence reduction precedes the increase in the mean sheared flow, but is simultaneous with the increase in the low frequency oscillating sheared flow. These observations may be interpreted in terms of turbulence suppression by oscillating flows, the so-called zonal flows.