Operation of a repeating pneumatic hydrogen pellet injector on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor

Abstract

The repeating pneumatic hydrogen pellet injector, which was developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has been installed and operated on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR). The injector combines high-speed extruder and pneumatic acceleration technologies to propel frozen hydrogen isotope pellets repetitively at high speeds. The pellets are transported to the plasma in an injection line that also serves to minimize the gas loading on the torus; the injection line incorporates a fast shutter valve and two stages of guide tubes with intermediate vacuum pumping stations. A remote, stand-alone control and data acquisition system is used for injector and vacuum system operation. In early pellet fueling experiments on TFTR, the injector has been used to deliver deuterium pellets at speeds ranging from 1.0 to 1.5 km/s into plasma discharges. First, single large (nominal 4 mm diam) pellets provided high densities in TFTR (1.8×1014 cm−3 on axis); after conversion to smaller (nominal 2.7 mm diam) pellets, up to five pellets were injected at 0.25 s intervals into a plasma discharge, giving a line-averaged density of 1×1014 cm−3. Operating characteristics and performance of the injector in initial tests on TFTR are presented.