C.H. Ma

The beryllium limiter experiment in ISX-B

An experiment to test beryllium as a limiter material has been performed in the ISX-B tokamak. The effect of the plasma on the limiter and the effect of the limiter on the plasma were studied in detail. Heat and particle fluxes to the limiter were measured, and limiter damage by melting was documented as a function of power flux. Strong melting and evaporation of the limiter caused beryllium gettering of the vacuum vessel. Postmortem analysis of the limiter was performed to document the amount of retained hydrogen and the erosion and impurity deposition on the limiter. The effect of the limiter on the plasma performance was studied in terms of parameter space, impurity content, and confinement for the ungettered and gettered cases. Operational experience with beryllium in a fusion experiment is discussed.

Confinement in beam-heated plasmas: the effects of low-Z impurities

Confinement studies on the Impurity Study Experiment (ISX-B) in beam-heated plasmas contaminated with small quantities of low-Z impurities are reported. Experimental results on the correlation of particle and energy confinement are presented. A linear relationship of energy confinement and plasma density is observed. As density is increased further, this effect saturates and energy confinement becomes independent of electron density. The experiments have been extended to higher beam power, resulting in an expansion of the ISX-B operating space. Impurities other than neon (carbon and silicon) have been tried and do not produce an enhancement in confinement. Edge cooling by the introduction of impurities has been demonstrated. The change in confinement has been shown to be correlated with changes in the normalized poloidal field fluctuation level (θ/Bθ) but not with the density fluctuation level (ne/ne). The experimental results are compared with models of drift-wave and resistive ballooning turbulence and an explanation is offered for the difference between the results with recycling and non-recycling impurities.

Confinement improvement in beam heated ISX-B discharges with low-z impurity injection

Abstract Results are reported on improved confinement in the Impurity Study Experiment (ISX-B) neutral beam heated plasmas when a small amount of neon is injected shortly after the start of beam heating. The scaling of energy confinement is modified by the introduction of a dependence on line-averaged density. Calculations show the improvement is primarily caused by a reduction in electron heat conduction.

Measurement of CO2 laser small angle Thomson scattering on a magnetically confined plasma

We report the first successful small‐angle (less than 1°) Thomson scattering measurement of 10 μm radiation from a magnetically confined toroidal plasma. This represents a proof‐of‐principle demonstration of a new diagnostic technique for confined deuterium‐tritium fusion‐product alpha particles in future fusion reactors. This result was achieved by detecting scattered CO2 laser light from the plasma of the ATF torsatron at an angle of 0.86° using a novel heterodyne receiver scheme. A predicted resonance in the scattered power as a function of plasma electron density is clearly resolved in the measurements.

Particle removal with pump limiters in ISX-B

Abstract The first pump limiter experiments were performed on ISX-B. Two pump limiter modules were installed in the top and bottom of one toroidal sector of the tokamak. The modules consist of inertia cooled, TiC-coated graphite heads and ZrAl getter pumps each with a pumping speed of 1000–2000 l/s. The objective of the initial experiments was the demonstration of plasma particle control with pump limiters. The first set of experiments were performed in ohmic discharges (OH) in which the effect of the pump limiters on the plasma density was clearly demonstrated. In discharges characterized by Ip = 110 kA, B T = 15 kG , n e = 1−5 × 10 13 cm −3 and t = 0.3 s, the pressure rise in the pump limiters was typically 2 mTorr with the pumps off and 0.7 mTorr after activating the pumps. When the pumps were activated, the line-average plasma density decreased by up to a factor 2 at identical gas flow rates. The second set of measurements were performed in neutral beam heated discharges (NBI) with injected powers between 0.6 MW and 1.0 MW. Due to a cooling problem on one of the ZrAl pumps, the NBI experiments were carried out with one limiter only. The maximum pressure observed in NBI-discharges was 5 mTorr without activating the pumps, i.e., approximately twice as high as in OH-discharges. The exhaust efficiency, which is defined as the removed particle flux divided by the total particle flux in the scrape-off layer, is estimated to be 5%.

Impurity fluxes and concentrations in the ISX-B beryllium limiter experiment

An experiment to test beryllium as a limiter material has been performed in the ISX-B tokamak. One facet of the studies centred on characterizing impurity influxes and concentrations. The radiation from both low-Z (Be, C, N, O) and intermediate-Z (Ti, Cr) contaminants was measured at the limiter surface and at a wall location 90° away from the limiter to assess the relative contributions of metallic impurities from the two different sources. The effect of limiter melting, with concomitant reduction of both low-Z and intermediate-Z elements, was also documented. The analysis, including atomic rate coefficients, for interpreting spectral radiation in terms of production rates is discussed in detail.

Measurements of electron density and plasma current distributions in Tokamak plasma

A submillimeter-wave, phase-modulated polarimeter/interferometer is used for simultaneous time-dependent measurement of line-averaged electron density and poloidal field-induced Faraday rotation along chords of the plasma column in ISX-B tokamak. Heterodyne detection and hollow dielectric waveguide are utilized to achieve the high sensitivity required for the multichord experiment. A data analysis code has been developed to reconstruct the asymmetric distributions of plasma density. The validity of the code is examined, and the result shows good agreement with density profiles measured by Thomson scattering.

Measurements of periodic ripple transport in the ISX-B tokamak

The effect of periodic toroidal field (TF) ripple on ion confinement has been studied in the ISX-B tokamak by comparing neutral-beam-heated plasma performance with 9 and 18 TF coils. Three ripple physics issues were treated by these experiments: (1) enhanced ion thermal conductivity, (2) enhanced loss of energetic ions, and (3) ripple damping of beam-induced toroidal plasma rotation, which may affect the plasma losses. Under a wide variety of plasma conditions, ripple reduced the central-ion temperature by a factor of approximately two (600 eV → 300 eV). Ion temperature was found to be nearly independent of applied neutral-beam power in the large ripple configuration (9 TF coils). These results are shown to be in reasonable agreement with theoretical models of ripple transport. Charge-exchange measurements of the fast-neutral flux indicated no loss of fast passing ions due to ripple, but a large depletion of the fast ions trapped in local ripple wells, as expected theoretically. The central toroidal rotation velocity was reduced by a factor of six by ripple, yielding a momentum confinement time substantially less (factor of about seven) than that expected from standard theoretical expressions for ripple-enhanced ion viscosity.

Simultaneous measurement of line electron density and Faraday rotation in the ISX-B tokamak

A new diagnostic system utilizing a submillimetre-wave, phase-modulated polarimeter/interferometer has been used to simultaneously measure the time evolution of the line-averaged electron density and poloidal field-induced Faraday rotation in the ISX-B tokamak. The measurements, performed along four chords of the plasma column, have been correlated with poloidal field changes associated with a ramp in the Ohmic-heating current and by neutral-beam injection. These are the first simultaneous measurements of line electron density and Faraday rotation to be made along a chord of submillimetre laser beam in a tokamak plasma.

Rotation scalings and momentum confinement in neutral-beam-injected ISX-B plasmas

Scalings of the central rotation in non-gettered, co-injected ISX-B discharges have been measured as a function of beam power, electron density and plasma current. Extensive studies are made possible by exploiting charge-exchange excitation (CXE) of 0 VIII lines to measure Doppler shifts. The rotation velocity, v(0), tends to saturate at (1.0 − 1.2) × l07 cms−1 when Pb0.5 MW, showing little further increase up to the maximum input of 2 MW; v(0) is independent of ne and Ip. Momentum confinement times in quasi-steady plasmas are 10–16 ms for e = 4.5 × 1013 cm−3. Counter-injection discharges always disrupt, but before this event v(0) is the same as for co-injection plasmas. The addition of a third beam line, permitting injection of up to 2 MW of balanced neutral-beam power, has allowed comparisons of the energy and particle confinement in rotating and non-rotating plasmas with the same total neutral-beam input. In those cases where impurity buildup can be avoided, it is found that the ISX-B empirical scaling of energy confinement time is reproduced with balanced injection. Thus, the unfavourable dependence of is not the result of rotation. Studies of impurity behaviour under differing injection conditions have been extended to include fully stripped low-Z ions. The results are consistent with previous investigations of metallic elements which revealed strong dependences on the sense (co versus counter) of injection. The potentials calculated from momentum balance, using measured rotation profiles and typical plasma density and temperature profiles, are in qualitative agreement with the potentials measured directly for various combinations of co- and counter-injection.