Assessment of the ITER EC Upper Launcher Performance

The 24 MW ITER Electron Cyclotron (EC) Heating and Current Drive (H&CD) system, operating at 170 GHz, consists of one Equatorial (EL) and four Upper Launchers (UL). The main task of the UL will be the control of Magneto-Hydrodynamic (MHD) activity such as Neoclassical Tearing Modes (NTMs) at the q=3/2 and q=2 surfaces, but it will also be needed for current profile tailoring in advanced scenarios and to assist plasma break-down and L-to H-mode transition. Moreover, it is required to be effective both when ITER will operate at nominal and reduced magnetic field magnitude. Here the performance of the UL is assessed through the study of the full temporal evolution of different scenarios, including the reference ITER 15MA H-mode plasma, a half-field case at 2.65T, and a steady state scenario. The ECCD efficiency has been evaluated for a wide range of injection angles, deriving the optimal angles and the power required for NTMs stabilization, as well as the steering range necessary to reach the rational surfaces during all the phases of the discharge. The steering sensitivity to shifts of the target or aiming errors has been estimated too. The result is an assessment of the UL design requirements to achieve the desired functionalities, which, together with the engineering limits, will be used to drive the optimization and finalization of the UL design.