Deuterium inventory in Tore Supra: Coupled carbon–deuterium balance

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the carbon–deuterium circulation and the resulting balance in Tore Supra over the period 2002–2007. Carbon balance combines the estimation of carbon gross erosion from spectroscopy, net erosion and deposition using confocal microscopy, lock-in thermography and SEM, and a measure of the amount of deposits collected in the vacuum chamber. Fuel retention is determined from post-mortem (PM) analyses and gas balance (GB) measurements. Special attention was paid to the deuterium outgassed during the nights and weekends of the experimental campaign (vessel under vacuum, Plasma Facing Components at 120°C) and during vents (vessel at atmospheric pressure, PFCs at room temperature). It is shown that this outgassing is the main process reconciling the PM and GB estimations of fuel retention, closing the coupled carbon–deuterium balance. In particular, it explains why the deuterium concentration in deposits decreases with increasing depth.