Numerical simulations on loss of ICRF-heated NBI ions in EAST

Abstract The loss of ICRF-heated NBI ions in EAST tokamak was numerically investigated by ORBIT code simulations. The effects of collisions and ripples on particle losses taken into account, and the distributions of fast ions generated by different beams in combination with ICRF heating were calculated using the TRANSP code. Results showed that ICRF waves altered the orbital distributions of beam ions, causing an increase in trapped ions and fast ion losses. Additionally, for co-current injected beams, perpendicular injection resulted in higher fast ion losses in synergistic heating than tangential injection. The study also found that the synergistic effect of collisions and ripples enhanced fast ion losses, which were highly localized and generated a maximum heat load of 0.165 MW/m2 on the first wall. However, conducting synergy heating experiments at high plasma currents and low effective ion charge numbers can significantly reduce the loss of fast ions.