LH Current Drive at ITER Relevant Condition in FTU Tokamak

Full non-inductive current drive has been obtained on FTU at plasma densities and toroidal fields close to those expected for ITER. This paper extends the previous LHCD database for FTU to cleaner plasma conditions obtained after boronization of the first wall. With an LH power of 1.8 MW, a current of 0.5 MA has been fully driven at line averaged densities up to 0.8 . 1020m- 3. These discharges show an increase of the electron temperature up to 5 keV and a complete stabilization of the sawteeth activity. The current drive (CD) efficiency ( ) is close to 0.30 . 1020 W . A- 1 . m- 2. An N || scan is reported with a complete transport analysis. The favourable behavior of faster power spectra is evidenced on both the electron thermal diffusivity and . A comparison of the electron energy confinement time with the ITER97L-Thermal scaling exhibits a substantial agreement or even an improvement during the LHCD phase. The update of the FTU LHCD database confirms the favourable dependence of with the volume averaged electron temperature.