Particle and recycling control in translation, confinement, and sustainment upgrade
- Redmond Plasma Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, 14700 NE 95th St., Suite 100, Redmond, Washington 98052 (United States)
Previous work in the translation, confinement, and sustainment upgrade (TCSU) device [H. Y. Guo et al., Phys. Plasmas 15, 056101 (2008)] demonstrated improved plasma parameters; higher temperature, higher poloidal magnetic field, increased current drive, and increased energy confinement, for rotating magnetic field (RMF) driven field reversed configurations (FRC) relative to the earlier TCS device. This was accomplished by improving vacuum conditions and using moderate wall heating (approx100 deg. C) and glow discharge cleaning for wall conditioning. Two new wall conditioning techniques, siliconization and titanium gettering, have been employed to further reduce impurities and control recycling. Both techniques reduced oxygen line radiation by an order of magnitude, and total radiated power by 50%, but led to little change in overall FRC performance, reinforcing the earlier conclusion that TCSU FRCs are not radiation dominated. Titanium gettering substantially reduced deuterium recycling, requiring a new method of fueling to be developed. This is the first time a FRC has been operated without using wall recycling as the primary method of fueling. The low-recycling FRCs, maintained by enhanced puff fueling, performed similarly to standard recycling fueled FRCs in terms of a key current drive parameter B{sub e}/B{sub o}mega, the ratio of maximum sustained poloidal field to applied RMF field, but better density control allowed for higher temperatures.
- OSTI ID:
- 21347185
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 17, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3339907; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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