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.

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The PHEBUS-FP program is an outstanding example of an international cooperative research program that is yielding valuable data for validating severe accident analysis computer codes. The main objective of the PHEBUS FPT1 experiment was to study the processes in the overheated reactor core, release of fission products and their subsequent transport and deposition under conditions representative of a severe accident of a Pressurised Water Reactor. The FPT1 test could be divided in the bundle degradation, aerosol, washing and chemistry phases. The objective of this article is the best estimate analysis of the bundle degradation phase. GRS (Germany) best estimate method with the statistic tool SUSA used for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of calculation results and RELAP/SCDAPSIM code, designed to predict the behaviour of reactor systems during severe accident conditions, was used for the simulation of this test. The RELAP/SCDAPSIM calculation results were compared with the experimental measurements and calculations results, received by employing ICARE module of ASTEC V2 code. The performed analysis demonstrated, that the best estimate method, employing RELAP/SCDAPSIM and SUSA codes, is capable to model main severe accidents phenomena in the fuel bundle during the overheating and melting of reactor core.