Study of plasma wall interactions in the long-pulse NB-heated discharges of JT-60U towards steady-state operation

Abstract Long time scale variation of plasma-wall interactions and its impact on particle balance, main plasma performance and particle behavior have been investigated in ELMy H-mode plasmas by extending the discharge pulse and the neutral beam heating pulse to 65 s and 30 s, respectively. The wall pumping rate starts to decrease in the latter phase by repeating the long-pulse discharges with 60% of Greenwald density sustained by gas-puffing. After several discharges, the wall inventory is saturated in the latter phase and, consequently, the density increases with neutral beam fuelling only. The edge pressure in the main plasma is reduced and ELMs are close to the type III regime under conditions of wall saturation. The intensities of C II emission near the X-point and CD band emission in the inner divertor start to increase before the wall saturates and continue to increase after the wall is saturated.