FY 1980 CTR Plasma Engineering Studies performed at the University of Illinois are reported. Current studies concentrated on four major areas including (i) field-reversed mirror (FRM) and related compact tori, (ii) dynamic behavior of the reversed-field pinch (RFP) including transport and stability and start-up, (iii) plasma buildup in small mirrors by including finite, ion orbit effects as well as the drift cyclotron loss-cone velocity-space diffusion, and (iv) high-energy fusion product transport in non-circular and high-..beta.. tokamaks, alpha ash buildup and possible control in tokamaks. Various computer packages have been produced for FRM, FROP, RFP, small compact tori and non-circular tokamaks. Basic models and the code packages developed and tested with available experiments are of vital information that can be used in conceptual reactor studies for the scaling and prediction of plasma behavior in near-term reactors.

During FY 82, much effort was devoted to work in support of alternate confinement concepts, especially those involving field reversal. This work includes: (1) development of particle and energy confinement scaling for the Reversed Field Pinch (RFP) and the Field Reversed Theta Pinch (FRTP), and (2) analysis of start-up (heating and plasma build) for the spheromak and Field Reversed Mirror (FRM). In addition, a block of projects were concerned with fusion product effects, including heating and ash build-up. These include, (1) a study of possible use of radial electric fields to control ash build-up in tokamaks, (2) effects of alpha-driven microinstabilities on heating in tokamaks, and (3) fusion product transport, including effects of large angle scattering on orbits, in EBT and FRM devices. In a related study, the possibility of hot-ion mode operation (assuming strong transfer of fusion product energy to ions, e.g. via microinstabilities) was done with emphasis on calculation of ion-electron equilibration rates.