The TCV tokamak offers outstanding variability of the plasma shape. Using x-ray tomography, the shape of the inner flux surfaces of a poloidal cross section of the plasma can be reconstructed, including fast variations due to MHD activity. Both the hardware and the software of the 200 channel system developed for TCV are described.A new 'dynamical' calibration takes actual plasma parameters into account to determine the spectrum-dependent detector efficiency, resulting in an enhanced quality of reconstructions.Tomographic inversions are obtained using a variety of methods such as maximum entropy, linear regularization and a newly developed method based on the Fisher information. The merits of the different algorithms, which have been implemented as MATLAB functions, are compared.Inversion results are analysed with the help of singular-value decomposition, allowing, for example, identification of MHD modes without using any a priori information on the poloidal mode structure.Recent results on the dependence of sawtooth activity on the plasma triangularity are presented to demonstrate the performance of the soft x-ray tomography system.

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During the first year of operation, the TCV tokamak has produced a large variety of plasma shapes and magnetic configurations, with 1 . O B J1.46T, I <800kA, ~S2.05, -0.7G%0.7. A new shape control algorithm, Eased on a finite element reconstruction of the plasma current in real time, has been implemented. Vertical growth rates of 800 sec-', corresponding to a stability margin f=l.IS, have been stabilized. Ohmic H-modes, with energy confinement times reaching 8 h s , normalized beta (p ,aB/I> of 1.9 and z P R 8 9 -P of 2.4 have been obtained in singlenuB X-point deuterium discharges with the ion grad B drift towards the X-point. Limiter H-modes with maximum line averaged electron densities of 1 . 7~1 0~~m -~ have been observed in D-shaped plasmas with 360kASIp&00kA.

Confinement in TCV electron cyclotron heated discharges was studied as a function of plasma shape, i.e. as a function of elongation, 1.1 < κ < 2.15, and triangularity, −0.65 ≤ δ ≤ 0.55. The electron energy confinement time was found to increase with elongation, owing in part to the increase of plasma current with elongation. The beneficial effect of negative triangularities was most effective at low power and tended to decrease at the higher powers used. The large variety of sawtooth types observed in TCV for different power deposition locations, from on-axis to the q = 1 region, was simulated with a model that included local power deposition, a growing m/n = 1 island (convection and reconnection), plasma rotation and finite heat diffusivity across flux surfaces. Furthermore, a model with local magnetic shear reproduced the experimental observation that the sawtooth period is at a maximum when the heating is close to the q = 1 surface.