M. Röllig

CAPER as Central and Crucial Facility to Support R&D with Tritium at TLK

Abstract The CAPER facility at TLK originally devoted to R&D on tokamak exhaust processing has been significantly upgraded over the last years. Beside new R&D on highly tritiated water, CAPER is presently largely used to support satellite experiments, mainly those dedicated to R&D on advanced analytics. Mutation from R&D to part of the TLK tritium infrastructure necessitated new features to be installed in order to facilitate and optimize tritiated mixtures preparation and sample filling, and to enable satellites experiments to discharge their waste gas to CAPER for clean-up. This paper presents recent CAPER mutations to become a central and key facility at TLK.

Status of the neutrino mass experiment KATRIN

Abstract One of the most important questions in fundamental physics and cosmology are the origin and the masses of fundamental particles, in particular the neutrino masses. KATRIN will allow a model-independent measurement of the neutrino mass scale with an expected sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2 (90% CL). KATRIN will use a source of ultrapure molecular tritium and is currently being built up at the site of KIT, thereby making use of the unique expertise of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe. This paper presents the status of the KATRIN experiment, with the focus on its Calibration and Monitoring System, which is the last component being subject to R&D.

Status of the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Mass Experiment KATRIN

Abstract Among the most important questions in fundamental physics and cosmology are the origin and the masses of fundamental particles, in particular the neutrino masses. KATRIN will allow a model-independent measurement of the neutrino mass scale with an expected sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2 (90% CL). KATRIN will use a source of ultrapure molecular tritium and is currently being commissioned at KIT, thereby making use of the unique expertise of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe. This paper presents the status of the KATRIN experiment, with the focus on the activity monitoring of the KATRIN tritium source.

Post service examination of turbomolecular pumps after stress testing with Kg-scale tritium throughput

Abstract Turbomolecular pumps (TMP) will be used with large amounts of tritium in future fusion machines like ITER, DEMO and in the KATRIN Experiment. In the work presented, a stress test of a Leybold® MAG W2800 with a tritium throughput of 1.1 kg over 384 days of operation was performed at TLK. After this, the pump was dismantled and the tritium uptake in several parts was determined. Especially the non-metallic parts of the pump absorb large amounts of tritium and are most likely responsible for the observed pollution of the process gas. The total tritium uptake of the TMP was estimated with 0.1-1.1 TBq. No radiation-induced damages were found on the inner parts of the pump. The TMP showed no signs of functional limitations during the 384 days of operation.