Microscopic structure of plasma turbulence in the torsatron TJ-K

Plasma turbulence is characterised by the fluctuation of density, potential and temperature on all temporal and spatial scales. In magnetically confined plasmas, turbulence causes an increased particle and heat transport across the magnetic field lines. The focus of this work is the experimental investigation of density and potential fluctuations and the resulting turbulent transport. A poloidal Langmuir probe array with 64 tips is employed to investigate turbulence in the confinement region at all spatial scales. A dependence on the drift scale rho_s is found. The cross phase between density and potential fluctuations is near zero, indicating drift wave turbulence. This result is also found in simulations. Finally, the conditional averaging method was used to detect the spatio-temporal structure of turbulent events with simple two probe measurements. The results are in agreement with the results from the probe array

In-situ real-time monitoring of spurious modes in HE11_{11} transmission lines using multi-hole couplers in miter bends

Transmission of high-power millimeter waves for ECRH is often realised with oversized corrugated circular waveguides. Coupling from the gyrotron source to the waveguide is typically done via matching mirrors in free space. Small alignment errors of the system lead to the excitation of higher-order modes inside the waveguide beside the main transmission mode HE$_{11}$. Tose modes have comparably higher losses and can in worst case result in local fields exceeding the breakdown limit of the medium inside the waveguide. For alignment control over the whole pulse duration of the gyrotron, a set of hole-array couplers placed into a miter bend mirror probes the field inside the waveguide. The arrays are designed to detect the marker modes for beam offset and tilt (LP$^{(e=0)}$$_{11}$) as well as for beam waist mismatch (LP$_{02}$). In addition, a main mode coupler sensitive mostly for the HE$_{11}$ content is used as a power monitor. By maximizing the signal of the power monitor and minimizing the content of marker modes, a first-order optimization of the coupling from free space to the waveguide can be achieved. Signal processing of the 140 GHz information is done at kHz range after downmixing, using a frequency shifted part of the power monitor signal. As the measurement system is placed in a miter bend mirror, it can also be easily installed at various locations along the transmission line to check for possible misalignments of the waveguide connections between miter bends. Simulation and low power experimental results will be shown

Completion of the 8 MW Multi-Frequency ECRH System at ASDEX Upgrade

Over the last 15 years, the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak has been upgraded from a 2 MW, 2 s, 140 GHz system to an 8 MW, 10 s, dual frequency system (105/140 GHz). Eight gyrotrons were in routine operation during the current experimental campaign. All gyrotrons are step-tunable operating at 105 and 140 GHz with a maximum output power of about 1 MW and 10 s pulse length. The system includes 8 transmission lines, mainly consisting of oversized corrugated waveguides (I.D. = 87 mm) with overall lengths between 50 and 70 meters including quasi-optical sections at both ends. Further improvements of the transmission lines with respect to power handling and reliability are underway

Development of reflection gratings for advanced ECRH scenarios

An existing framework for the design of reflection gratings was reworked. It takes the astigmatic complex beam parameters and the orientations of the beam axes of the incident and reflected beams as input and synthesizes a grating, which transforms the incident beam into the reflected beam. This is done by decomposing the 3D problem into a series of 2D reflections of plane waves. The 2D grating profiles are optimized in parallel on multiple computers. Finally, the 3D grating is derived using a simplified interpolation scheme

Simulation of Polarising and Reflector Gratings for High Power mm Waves

High power mm waves for fusion plasma heating need to be elliptically polarised to ensure good absorption in the plasma. In some scenarios, electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) at higher harmonics (X3 and O2) is used, but this has significant shine-through because of low single pass absorption. Grating reflectors at the inboard strike point form a holographic mirror that reflects the beam back into the plasma. This paper investigates the optical properties and ohmic losses of both the polariser and the reflectors with the 3D fullwave code IPF-FD3D. The reflection properties of a reflector for ASDEX Upgrade and the improved ohmic losses of a waveguide polariser were confirmed

In-situ real-time monitoring of spurious modes in HE11 transmission lines using multi-hole couplers in miter bends

Transmission of high-power millimeter waves for ECRH is often realised with oversized corrugated circular waveguides. Coupling from the gyrotron source to the waveguide is typically done via matching mirrors in free space. Small alignment errors of the system lead to the excitation of higher-order modes inside the waveguide beside the main transmission mode HE11. Those modes have comparably higher losses and can in worst case result in local fields exceeding the breakdown limit of the medium inside the waveguide. For alignment control over the whole pulse duration of the gyrotron, a set of hole-array couplers placed into a miter bend mirror probes the field inside the waveguide. The arrays are designed to detect the marker modes for beam offset and tilt (LP(e=o)11 )as well as for beam waist mismatch (LP02). In addition, a main mode coupler sensitive mostly for the HE11 content is used as a power monitor. By maximizing the signal of the power monitor and minimizing the content of marker modes, a first-order optimization of the coupling from free space to the waveguide can be achieved. Signal processing of the 140 GHz information is done at kHz range after downmixing, using a frequency shifted part of the power monitor signal. As the measurement system is placed in a miter bend mirror, it can also be easily installed at various locations along the transmission line to check for possible misalignments of the waveguide connections between miter bends. Simulation and low power experimental results will be shown

Beam tracing study for design and operation of two-pass electron cyclotron heating at ASDEX Upgrade

The electron cyclotron resonance heating system at ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) is currently being extended to eight similar Gyrotrons in total. Each Gyrotron operates at 105 and 140 GHz and is designed for up to 1 MW millimetre wave output power. A substantial part of the AUG program will focus on experimental conditions, where the plasma density may be above the X-2 cut-off density at 140 GHz. In order to cope with the high density, the heating system will operate in the O-2 mode scheme with potentially incomplete absorption in the first pass. Reflecting gratings installed into the heat shield on AUG’s inner column allow for a controlled second pass of the beam’s unabsorbed fraction. Thermocouple measurements serve to control the beam position on the grating. The beam geometry is being finalized for the launchers #1-4. Beam propagation is simulated with the TORBEAM code and previous high density experiments are used as a database. The geometry is optimized using three criteria: central deposition, high absorption and robustness of the beam dump after the second pass. The experimental conditions, and the plasma electron density in particular, may vary such that the Gaussian beam parameters of the incoming beam on the grating deviate from the design values. It is proposed to model the effect of the grating with an equivalent ellipsoidal mirror. Laboratory measurements are shown, which support this model

Experiments with reduced single pass absorption at ASDEX Upgrade – instrumentation and applications

Reflecting gratings have been installed in the vacuum vessel of ASDEX Upgrade for all beamlines of the electron cyclotron resonance heating system. Potentially unabsorbed millimetre wave power after the first pass through the plasma is redirected towards the plasma centre. This increases the efficiency of heating schemes with reduced single pass absorption like O-2 or X-3. In order to monitor beam position and power, thermocouples were installed into the gratings. A numerical model was developed to evaluate the beam intensity during short pulses from the thermocouple measurement in a non-stationary environment. An experiment was carried out, where only the X-3 resonance is present in the plasma, and the millimetre wave beam shine-through was measured successfully as a function of the central plasma electron temperature. This allows to deduce the X-3 absorption experimentally. Scanning the launching angles, it seems possible to measure the 2D beam cross section after the first pass through the plasma

Report of recent experiments with the European 1 MW, 170 GHz CW and SP prototype gyrotrons for ITER

The European 1 MW, 170 GHz industrial CW prototype gyrotron has been designed within EGYC (European GYrotron Consortium) in collaboration with the industrial partner Thales Electron Devices (TED) and under the coordination of Fusion for Energy (F4E). This is a conventional (hollow) cavity gyrotron that is based on the 1 MW, 170 GHz short-pulse (SP) modular gyrotron, which has been designed and manufactured by KIT in collaboration with TED. The SP prototype has been tested in multiple experimental campaigns since 2015 and the nominal cavity mode TE32,9 is exited at 170.1 GHz, producing RF power above 1 MW with 35 % interaction efficiency. The first phase of the experiments with the CW industrial gyrotron was successfully completed at KIT in 2016, verifying most of the ITER specifications. Short pulses (<10ms) deliver RF power higher than 0.9 MW with a total efficiency of 26 % (in non-depressed collector operation). The Gaussian mode content of the RF beam is 97 %. Pulses with duration of 180 s (limited by the high-voltage power supply at KIT) produce power more than 0.8 MW with maximum efficiency 38 % (in depressed collector operation). In this work the achievements with the SP and the CW prototype gyrotrons are summarized