Excitation test results on a single inner vertical coil for the Large Helical Device

Excitation experiments on a single inner vertical coil for the Large Helical Device (LHD) were carried out to confirm its performance. The coil is one of the LHD\u27s poloidal field coils and consists of a forced-flow Nb-Ti cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC). After cooldown for 250 hours, the superconducting transition of the whole coil was confirmed. Pressure drops were measured during the cooldown to determine the coil\u27s hydraulic characteristics. Then, the coil was successfully energized up to the specified current, 20.8 kA. In the experiments, heat generation of joints, radial displacement and acoustic emission (AE) were measured

Improved plasma performance on Large Helical Device

Since the start of the Large Helical Device (LHD) experiment, various attempts have been made to achieve improved plasma performance in LHD [A. Iiyoshi et al., Nucl. Fusion 39, 1245 (1999)]. Recently, an inward-shifted configuration with a magnetic axis position R_ax of 3.6 m has been found to exhibit much better plasma performance than the standard configuration with R_ax of 3.75 m. A factor of 1.6 enhancement of energy confinement time was achieved over the International Stellarator Scaling 95. This configuration has been predicted to have unfavorable magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) properties, based on linear theory, even though it has significantly better particle-orbit properties, and hence lower neoclassical transport loss. However, no serious confinement degradation due to the MHD activities was observed, resolving favorably the potential conflict between stability and confinement at least up to the realized volume-averaged beta of 2.4%. An improved radial profile of electron temperature was also achieved in the configuration with magnetic islands, minimized by an external perturbation coil system for the Local Island Divertor (LID). The LID has been proposed for remarkable improvement of plasma confinement like the high (H) mode in tokamaks, and the LID function was suggested in limiter experiments

Initial physics achievements of large helical device experiments

The Large Helical Device (LHD) experiments [O. Motojima, et al., Proceedings, 16th Conference on Fusion Energy, Montreal, 1996 (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1997), Vol. 3, p. 437] have started this year after a successful eight-year construction and test period of the fully superconducting facility. LHD investigates a variety of physics issues on large scale heliotron plasmas (R = 3.9 m, a = 0.6 m), which stimulates efforts to explore currentless and disruption-free steady plasmas under an optimized configuration. A magnetic field mapping has demonstrated the nested and healthy structure of magnetic surfaces, which indicates the successful completion of the physical design and the effectiveness of engineering quality control during the fabrication. Heating by 3 MW of neutral beam injection (NBI) has produced plasmas with a fusion triple product of 8 X 10^18 keV m^3 s at a magnetic field of 1.5 T. An electron temperature of 1.5 keV and an ion temperature of 1.4 keV have been achieved. The maximum stored energy has reached 0.22 MJ, which corresponds to = 0.7%, with neither unexpected confinement deterioration nor visible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities. Energy confinement times, reaching 0.17 s at the maximum, have shown a trend similar to the present scaling law derived from the existing medium sized helical devices, but enhanced by 50%. The knowledge on transport, MHD, divertor, and long pulse operation, etc., are now rapidly increasing, which implies the successful progress of physics experiments on helical currentless-toroidal plasmas

Observation of the “Self-Healing” of an Error Field Island in the Large Helical Device

It was observed that the vacuum magnetic island produced by an external error magnetic field in the large helical device shrank in the presence of plasma. This was evidenced by the disappearance of flat regions in the electron temperature profile obtained by Thomson scattering. This island behavior depended on the magnetic configuration in which the plasmas were produced

Ion cyclotron range of frequency heating experiments on the large helical device and high energy ion behavior

Ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating experiments on the Large Helical Device (LHD) [O. Motojima et al. Fus. Eng. Des. 20, 3 (1993)] achieved significant advances during the third experimental campaign carried out in 1999. They showed significant results in two heating modes; these are modes of the ICH-sustained plasma with large plasma stored energy and the neutral beam injection (NBI) plasma under additional heating. A long-pulse operation of more than 1 minute was achieved at a level of 1 MW. The characteristics of the ICRF heated plasma are the same as those of the NBI heated plasma. The energy confinement time is longer than that of International Stellarator Scaling 95. Three keys to successful ICRF heating are as follows: (1) an increase in the magnetic field strength, (2) the employment of an inward shift of the magnetic axis, (3) the installation of actively cooled graphite plates along the divertor legs. Highly energetic protons accelerated by the ICRF electric field were experimentally observed in the energy range from 30 to 250 keV and the tail temperature depended on the energy balance between the wave heating and the electron drag. The transfer efficiency from the high energy ions to the bulk plasma was deduced from the increase in the energy confinement time due to the high energy ions in the lower density discharge, which agrees fairly well with the result obtained by the Monte Carlo simulation. The transfer efficiency is expected to be 95% at an electron density of more than n_e=5.0×10^19 m^?3 even in the high power heating of 10 MW. The accumulation of impurities, e.g., FeXVI and OV was not observed in high rf power and long pulse operation. The well-defined divertor intrinsic to LHD is believed to be useful in reducing the impurity influx

Reduction of Ion Thermal Diffusivity Associated with the Transition of the Radial Electric Field in Neutral-Beam-Heated Plasmas in the Large Helical Device

Recent large helical device experiments revealed that the transition from ion root to electron root occurred for the first time in neutral-beam-heated discharges, where no nonthermal electrons exist. The measured values of the radial electric field were found to be in qualitative agreement with those estimated by neoclassical theory. A clear reduction of ion thermal diffusivity was observed after the mode transition from ion root to electron root as predicted by neoclassical theory when the neoclassical ion loss is more dominant than the anomalous ion loss