ITER Ion Cyclotron Heating and Fueling Systems

Abstract

The ITER burning plasma and advanced operating regimes require robust and reliable heating and current drive and fueling systems. The ITER design documents describe the requirements and reference designs for the ion cyclotron and pellet fueling systems. Development and testing programs are required to optimize, validate and qualify these systems for installation on ITER.The ITER ion cyclotron system offers significant technology challenges. The antenna must operate in a nuclear environment and withstand heat loads and disruption forces beyond present-day designs. It must operate for long pulse lengths and be highly reliable, delivering power to a plasma load with properties that will change throughout the discharge. The ITER ion cyclotron system consists of one eight-strap antenna, eight rf sources (20 MW, 35-65 MHz), associated high-voltage DC power supplies, transmission lines and matching and decoupling components.The ITER fueling system consists of a gas injection system and multiple pellet injectors for edge fueling and deep core fueling. Pellet injection will be the primary ITER fuel delivery system. The fueling requirements will require significant extensions in pellet injector pulse length (~3000 s), throughput (400 torr-L/s,) and reliability. The proposed design is based on a centrifuge accelerator fed by a continuous screw extruder. Inner wall pellet injection with the use of curved guide tubes will be utilized for deep fueling.