Recent high-speed ballistics experiments at ORNL

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:29437

Combs, S K; Gouge, M J; Baylor, L R; Fisher, P W; Foster, C A; Foust, C R; Milora, S L; Qualls, A L

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been developing pellet injectors for plasma fueling experiments on magnetic confinement devices for almost 20 years. With these devices, pellets (1 to 8 mm in diameter) composed of hydrogen isotopes are formed (at temperatures <20 K) and typically accelerated to speeds of {approximately} 1.0 to 2.0 km/s for injection into plasmas of experimental fusion devices. A variety of pellet injector designs have been developed at ORNL, including repeating pneumatic injectors (single- and multiple-barrel light gas guns) that can inject up to hundreds of pellets for long-pulse plasma operation. The repeating pneumatic injectors are of particular importance because long-pulse fueling is required for present large experimental fusion devices, with steady-state operation the objective for future fusion reactors. In this paper, recent advancements in the development of repeating pneumatic injectors are described, including (1) a small-bore (1.8-mm), high-firing-rate (10-Hz) version of a single-stage light gas gun; (2) a repeating single-stage light gas gun for 8-mm-diam tritium pellets; (3) a repeating two-stage light gas gun for operation at higher pellet velocities; and (4) a steady-state hydrogen extruder feed system.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 29437
• Report Number(s): CONF-9410305--1; ON: DE95006534
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
PELLET INJECTION
THERMONUCLEAR FUELS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR FUELING