Integrated operation in achieving steady-state H-mode plasma on EAST

A 100 sec long-pulse steady-state H-mode plasma with good energy confinement (H98(y,2) ~ 1.1) has been successfully achieved on EAST using RF heating and current drive. Recent EAST experiments with improved hardware capabilities have demonstrated steady-state fully non-inductive scenarios with extension of fusion performance (ßP~2.5 & ßN~2.0, H98(y,2)~1.2, <ne>/nGW~0.8, fBS~50% at q95~6.8) through integrated control of the wall conditioning and recycling, plasma configuration, divertor heat flux, particle and impurity control, and the effective coupling of multiple RF heating and current drive (H&CD) sources. This steady-state scenario was characterized with fully non-inductive current drive at high density with low rotation and high-frequency, small-amplitude edge localized modes (ELMs), and stable control of heat and particle exhaust using various technologies (e.g. RMP) on the ITER-like tungsten divertor. The optimization of the X-point, plasma shape, the outer gap and local gas puffing near the lower hybrid wave (LHW) antenna were integrated with global parameters of BT, line averaged electron density <ne> for high LHW current drive efficiency, and on-axis deposition of ECH in the long pulse operation. The benefits of using ECRH to avoid tungsten accumulation in the core plasma, and enhancement of H&CD by the synergistic effect of ECH and LHW were demonstrated. A higher energy confinement is observed at higher performance with favorable BT direction.