Design concept and confinement prediction of TPE-RX reversed-field pinch device

TPE-RX is a large-sized reversed-field pinch machine newly constructed at t he Electrotechnical Laboratory. In this paper the design concepts, procedur es to determine the machine size and the flux swing to drive the plasma cur rent, and the prediction of the global confinement properties of the TPE-RX are reported. From these considerations, major and minor radii (R, a) are decided to be R/alpha = 1.7175/0.45 m, respectively. It is estimated that t he flux swing of the iron core of more than 3.9 Wb is necessary to drive 1 MA of plasma current, I,, which is the given constraint of the machine. Ene rgy confinement time in the range of 3-18 ms is predicted to be attained at I,= 1 MA depending on the models and assumptions. (C) 1999 Elsevier Scienc e S.A. All rights reserved.