The theory of the quasi-optical grill: A lower hybrid wave launcher in the 4 - 10 GHz range for high field tokamaks
Lower hybrid (LH) waves have been utilized for plasma heating and current drive in tokamaks. LH current drive has good efficiency in low to moderate plasma temperatures and is an excellent tool for attaining the reversed shear regions of much interest in advanced steady state tokamak scenarios. For high field tokamaks, the waveguides of the standard multifunction grills would become very narrow and the walls separating the waveguides would need to be very thin. As a result, the cooling of such structures becomes very difficult. Moreover, there are concerns that the classical grill launcher could not withstand the conditions at the reactor first wall. The Quasi-Optical Grill (QOG) was first proposed by Petelin & Suvorov to overcome some of these difficulties. QOG attempts to couple the RF power to the plasma slow wave by means of the diffraction of the incident wave on an array of rods. However, these original calculations are based on certain idealized assumptions and lead to poor coupling to the plasma. Preinhaelter has suggested a new QOG in which the rods are placed in one oversized waveguide ({open_quotes}hyperguide{close_quotes}) and irradiated obliquely by the wave emerging as a higher order mode from an auxiliary oversized waveguide. The confining walls are now an intrinsic part of the structure and thus one avoids the need for mirrors and the introduction of {open_quote}point-like{close_quote} structures. This new QOG is compact - with several orders of magnitude less construction elements than the classical LH launcher - and the problem of wave diffraction can be readily solved using the full wave method. Here we consider the optimization of a large scale QOG at a given frequency. The irradiation of either a single row or double set of rows of rods are considered as well as their optimal separation. One can achieve transmissivity and directivity comparable to those of the multifunction grill. Design of a QOG for TORE-SUPRA will also be discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 489433
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960354-; TRN: 97:011578
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International Sherwood fusion theory conference, Philadelphia, PA (United States), 18-20 Mar 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of 1996 international Sherwood fusion theory conference; PB: 244 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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