Alternative Approaches to Plasma Confinement

The plasma physics literature has been surveyed, and 20 different plasma confinement concepts have been identified, each of which has distinctive features which set it apart from the main-line tokamak approach. The principles and characteristics of these concepts are described, and selected literature is cited for each. Because these concepts are in an early stage of investigation, all of their advantages and limitations are not well defined. They may offer one or more advantages over the tokamak and provide an alternative to it after further development. Eighteen of these concepts have been reduced to practice in the form of an operating experimental device.