FusionBenchmark

Energy confinement time (τ_E)

How long the plasma retains its energy (τ_E) — stored energy divided by heating power. NOT the length of the discharge: a machine can hold a plasma for 1,000 seconds with a confinement time of a fraction of a second, and conflating the two is one of the most common errors in coverage.

Vocabulary id: metric:energy-confinement-time
Scheme: Metrics
Records using it: 22

Measured on 22

JT-60U T-3 ST TFR PLT Alcator A Alcator C ASDEX Joint European Torus Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor DIII-D START MAST NSTX Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak KSTAR C-Mod ASDEX UPGRADE GLOBUS-M2 ST40 SPARC ITER

See the benchmark for the values, each with its status and source.

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