Benchmarking of Neutral Beam Current Drive Codes as a Basis for the Integrated Modeling for ITER

This paper discusses the results of a benchmark study in which the predictions of numerical codes for neutral beam current drive and heating were compared using the parameters of the reference ITER steady state scenario, as a collaboration work of in the frame of the ITPA-SSO group. The models employed in the benchmarked codes for each physics related to NB heating and current drive, such as the beam model, beam stopping cross section, fast ion solver, orbit effects and electron shielding, are reviewed and examined through comparison.