The electrical insulation of the DIII-D advanced divertor electrode

The electrode for biasing experiments on the DIII-D tokamak was installed in the summer of 1990 and biasing experiments have shown positive results. For the electrode, electrical insulation had to provide voltage standoff in the DIII-D divertor environment of neutral pressures in the range of 10{sup {minus}8} to 5 {times} 10{sup {minus}2} torr, variable magnetic fields, and in the presence of ionizing radiation. The electrical insulation system was designed and tested in air and vacuum for voltages up to 3 kV. In this paper, we provide an update on our operating experience, problems encountered, and improvements to the system. Electrical breakdown of some components has occurred during tokamak operations and transient voltages, up to 5 kV, have been observed. The original concept for insulating the water and electrical feeds for the electrode, a thin layer of woven ceramic cloth insulation between the feeds and a ground plane to keep out stray plasma, was found to be prone to failure. A new scheme of rigid ceramic insulators surrounded by a ground plane was designed and is being implemented. Another problem was arcs from vessel potential surfaces to the electrode in several locations where vessel ground existed within 1 cm of the electrode. The arc traveled in a small crack between two insulators. Careful attention has been paid to closing this and other small gaps in the insulation. Coatings on the surface of plasma facing insulators have been found to be electrically conductive. Grooves are being machined into the insulators to give areas shadowed from the coating source. Tests are being done to demonstrate the design concepts in both vacuum and glow discharge environments. Plasma sprayed ceramic coatings were also tested to determine the voltage standoff capability in a glow plasma discharge. The results of these tests will be discussed. 2 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab

Real-time protection of the ohmic heating coil force limits in DIII-D

The maximum safe operating limits of the DIII-D tokamak are determined by the force produced in the ohmic heating coil and the toroidal field coil during a plasma pulse. This force is directly proportional to the product of the current in the coils. Historically, the current limits for each coil were set statically before each pulse without regard for the time varying nature of the currents. In order to allow the full time-dependent capability of the ohmic coil to be used, a system was developed for monitoring the product of the currents dynamically and making appropriate adjustments in real time. This paper discusses the purpose, implementation, and results of this work

Control of plasma stored energy for burn control using DIII-D in-vessel coils

A new approach has been experimentally demonstrated to control the stored energy by applying a non-axisymmetric magnetic field using the DIII-D in-vessel coils to modify the energy confinement time. In future burning plasma experiments as well as magnetic fusion energy power plants, various concepts have been proposed to control the fusion power. The fusion power in a power plant operating at high gain can be related to the plasma stored energy and hence, is a strong function of the energy confinement time. Thus, an actuator that modifies the confinement time can be used to adjust the fusion power. In relatively low collisionality DIII-D discharges, the application of non-axisymmetric magnetic fields results in a decrease in confinement time and density pumpout. Gas puffing was used to compensate the density pumpout in the pedestal while control of the stored energy was demonstrated by the application of non-axisymmetric fields

Enhancement of EAST plasma control capabilities

In order to improve the plasma control performance and enhance the capability for advanced plasma control, new algorithms such as PEFIT/ISOFLUX plasma shape feedback control, quasi-snowflake plasma shape development and vertical control under new vertical control power supply, have been implemented and experimentally tested and verified in EAST 2014 campaign. P-EFIT is a rewritten version of EFIT aiming at fast real-time equilibrium reconstruction by using GPU for parallelized computation. Successful control using PEFIT/ISOFLUX was established in dedicated experiment. Snowfldivertor plasma shape has the advantage of spreading heat over the divertor target and a quasi-snowflake (QSF) configuration was achieved in discharges with Ip =0.25 MA and Bt =1.8T, κ∼1.9, by plasma position feedback control. The shape feedback control to achieve QSF shape has been preliminary implemented by using PEFIT and the initial experimental test has been done. For more robust vertical instability control, the inner coil (IC) and its power supply have been upgraded. A new control algorithm with the combination of Bang-bang and PID controllers has been developed. It is shown that new vertical control power supply together with the new control algorithms results in higher vertical controllability

Dust studies in DIII-D and TEXTOR

Studies of naturally occurring and artificially introduced carbon dust are conducted in DIII-D and TEXTOR. In DIII-D, dust does not present operational concerns except immediately after entry vents. Submicrometre sized dust is routinely observed using Mie scattering from a Nd: Yag laser. The source is strongly correlated with the presence of type I edge localized modes (ELMs). Larger size (0.005-1 mm diameter) dust is observed by optical imaging, showing elevated dust levels after entry vents. Inverse dependence of the dust velocity on the inferred dust size is found from the imaging data. Heating of the dust particles by the neutral beam injection (NBI) and acceleration of dust particles by the plasma flows are observed. Energetic plasma disruptions produce significant amounts of dust; on the other hand, large flakes or debris falling into the plasma may induce a disruption. Migration of pre-characterized carbon dust is studied in DIII-D and TEXTOR by introducing micrometre-size particles into plasma discharges. In DIII-D, a sample holder filled with 30-40 mg of dust is inserted in the lower divertor and exposed, via sweeping of the strike points, to the diverted plasma flux of high-power ELMing H-mode discharges. After a brief dwell (similar to 0.1 s) of the outer strike point on the sample holder, part of the dust penetrates into the core plasma, raising the core carbon density by a factor of 2-3 and resulting in a twofold increase in the radiated power. In TEXTOR, instrumented dust holders with 1-45 mg of dust are exposed in the scrape-off-layer 0-2 cm radially outside of the last closed flux surface in discharges heated with 1.4 MW of NBI. Launched in this configuration, the dust perturbed the edge plasma, as evidenced by a moderate increase in the edge carbon content, but did not penetrate into the core plasma