Parametric design studies of the FIRE/NSO

The FIRE/NSO (Fusion Ignition Research Experiment/Next-Step Option) is designed to be an inexpensive burning plasma experiment with alpha-dominated heating and pulses longer than particle confinement or current relaxation times. A new spreadsheet, FIRESALE, was constructed in order to ascertain the smallest and least expensive options that achieve this mission. The cost sensitivities of mission enhancement were also explored. Parametric variations of Ro, Bt, A, and qlim indicated that the present design of FIRE is close to the optimum for the “high-Q, long-burn” mission. Variations of physics assumptions indicated that performance will be more sensitive to the particle confinement/energy confinement ratio than to the H-factor of normalized beta. The FIRE/NSO design study is also meant to determine the impact of different magnet technologies. Performance differences between historic designs, scaled to a burning plasma experiment, were shown to be very large. Parametric studies of the impact of operational schedule on the tritium inventory and the initial costs of the auxiliary power and cryogenic refrigeration systems showed the possibility of significant cost reductions and easing of site requirements