Particle removal with pump limiters in ISX-B

Abstract

First pump limiter experiments were performed on ISX-B. Two pump limiter modules were installed in the top and bottom of one toroidal sector of the tokamak. The modules consist of inertia cooled, TiC coated graphite heads and Zr-Al getter pumps each with a pumping speed of 1000 to 2000 l/s. The objective of the initial experiments was the demonstration of plasma particle control with pump limiters. The first set of experiments were performed in ohmic discharges (OH) in which the effect of the pump limiters on the plasma density was clearly demonstrated. In discharges characterized by: I/sub p/ = 110 kA, B/sub T/ = 15 kG, anti n/sub e/ = 1 - 5 x 10/sup 13/ cm/sup -3/ and t = 0.3 s the pressure rise in the pump limiters was typically 2 mTorr with the pumps off and 0.7 mTorr after activating the pumps. When the pumps were activated, the line-average plasma density decreased by up to a factor 2 at identical gas flow rates. The second set of measurements were performed in neutral beam heated discharges (NBI) with injected powers between 0.6 MW and 1.0 MW. Due to a cooling problem on one of the Zr-Al pumps the NBI experiments were carried out with one limiter only. The maximum pressure observed in NBI-discharges was 5 mTorr without activating the pumps, i.e., approximately twice as high as in OH-discharges. The exhaust efficiency, which is defined as the removed particle flux over the total particle flux in the scrape-off layer is estimated to be 5%