ASCOT simulations of 14 MeV neutron rates in W7-X: effect of magnetic configuration

Abstract

Neutron production rates in fusion devices are determined not only by the kinetic profiles but also the fast ion slowing-down distributions. In this work, we investigate the effect of magnetic configuration on neutron production rates in future deuterium plasmas in the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. 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 thermonuclear and beam-target fusion. The 14.1 MeV neutron production rates were found to be between $1.49\times 10^{12}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ and $1.67\times 10^{12}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, which is estimated to be sufficient for a time-resolved detection using a scintillating fiber detector, although only in high-performance discharges.

17 pages, 10 figures. Version submitted to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

References in corpus (1)

• Serpent neutronics model of Wendelstein 7-X for 14.1 MeV neutrons

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Stellarator coil optimization supporting multiple magnetic configurations