Systematic comparison of a theory-based transport model with a multi-tokamak profile database

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Abstract
A theoretical model of flux‐surface‐averaged radial transport in tokamaks has been tested and re‐calibrated against a well‐documented set of temperature and density profiles from a pre‐defined set of discharges from six tokamaks. The transport theory includes neoclassical, drift/ηi, circulating electron mode, kinetic ballooning, neoclassical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), and resistive ballooning effects. Allowing for no explicitly adjustable free parameters and no a posteriori exclusion of data subsets, the nominal theory reproduced observed temperatures and electron densities with relative error about two orders of magnitude smaller than the range over which machine parameters and resulting plasma parameters varied in the reference discharges examined. An important feature of this study is a well‐defined procedure for setting boundary conditions at an appropriate location just inside the inner‐most ‘‘closed’’ magnetic flux surface.