IAEA Fusion Energy Conference 2010

Proceedings of the 23rd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference
Daejeon, 11-16 October 2010

Organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency
and hosted by the Government of the Republic of Korea

IAEA-CN-180

(ITR/P1-11) On Maximizing the ICRF Antenna Loading for ITER Plasmas

M.L. Mayoral1), V. Bobkov2), L. Colas3), M. Goniche3), J. Hosea4), J.G. Kwak5), R. Pinsker6), S. Moriyama7), S. Wukitch8), F.W. Baity9), S. Carpentier-Chouchana12), A. Czarnecka10), A. Ekedahl3), G. Hanson9), P. Jacquet1), P. Lamalle12), I. Monakhov1), M. Murakami9), A. Nagy4), M. Nightingale1), J.M. Noterdaeme2, 13), J. Ongena11), P.M. Ryan9), M. Vrancken11), J.R. Wilson4), JET-EFDA Contributors*, ASDEX Upgrade Team and the ITPA “Integrated Operations Scenarios” Topical Group Members and Experts
 
1) Euratom/CCFE Association, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, Oxon, OX143DB, UK
2) Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, EURATOM Association, Garching, Germany
3) Association Euratom-CEA, CEA/DSM/IRFM, F-13108 St Paul lez Durance, France
4) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ 08543, USA
5) Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Yuseong, Daejeon 350-600, Republic of Korea
6) General Atomics, PO Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186-5608, USA
7) Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 801-1, Mukouyama, Naka, Ibaraki-ken 311-0193, Japan
8) MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, MA02139, USA
9) Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
10) Association Euratom-IPPLM, Hery 23, 01-497 Warsaw, Poland
11) Association “EURATOM - Belgian State”, ERM-KMS, TEC partners, Brussels, Belgium
12) ITER Organization, F-13067, St. Paul lez Durance Cedex, France
13) EESA Department, UGent, Gent, Belgium
* See Appendix of F. Romanelli et al., Nucl. Fusion 49 (2009) 104006.

Abstract.  For any given ICRF antenna design for ITER, the maximum achievable power strongly depends on the density profiles in the SOL. It has been suggested that gas injection can be used to modify the SOL profiles and thus minimize the sensitivity of the ICRF coupling to variations in the density at the edge of the confined plasma. Recently joint experiments coordinated by the ITPA were performed to characterise further this method. An increase in SOL density during gas injection led to improved coupling for all tokamaks in this multi-machine comparison. The effectiveness of using gas injection over a wide range of conditions, as a tool to tailor the edge density in front of the ICRF antennas, is documented for different gas inlet location and plasma configurations. In addition, any deleterious effects on the confinement and interaction with the antenna near-field are investigated.

Full paper available (PDF)


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