Dedicated experiments have been carried out at the TEXTOR tokamak in biasing-induced improved confinement regimes using Langmuir probe and GPI measurements. The results show the first evidence for the intimate interaction among sheared flows, eddy structures, Reynolds stress, zonal flows, and ambient fluctuations during a transition to an improved confinement. The sheared flows impose dynamic effects on turbulence structures, resulting in generation of Reynolds stress and zonal flows and eventually the suppression of background fluctuation levels via nonlinear energy transfer processes. The latter may therefore trigger a transition to the H mode. © 2013 American Physical Society.

The 2014-2016 JET results are reviewed in the light of their significance for optimising the ITER research plan for the active and non-active operation. More than 60 h of plasma operation with ITER first wall materials successfully took place since its installation in 2011. New multi-machine scaling of the type I-ELM divertor energy flux density to ITER is supported by first principle modelling. ITER relevant disruption experiments and first principle modelling are reported with a set of three disruption mitigation valves mimicking the ITER setup. Insights of the L-H power threshold in Deuterium and Hydrogen are given, stressing the importance of the magnetic configurations and the recent measurements of fine-scale structures in the edge radial electric. Dimensionless scans of the core and pedestal confinement provide new information to elucidate the importance of the first wall material on the fusion performance. H-mode plasmas at ITER triangularity (H = 1 at β N ∼ 1.8 and n/n GW ∼ 0.6) have been sustained at 2 MA during 5 s. The ITER neutronics codes have been validated on high performance experiments. Prospects for the coming D-T campaign and 14 MeV neutron calibration strategy are reviewed.