Pellet injector development at ORNL
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Plasma Physics Lab.
Plasma fueling systems for magnetic confinement experiments are under development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL has recently provided a four-shot tritium pellet injector with up to 4-mm-diam capability for the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR). This injector, which is based on the in situ condensation technique for pellet formation, features three single-stage gas guns that have been qualified in deuterium at up to 1.7 km/s and a two-stage light gas gun driver that has been operated at 2.8-km/s pellet speeds for deep penetration in the high-temperature TFTR supershot regime. Performance improvements to the centrifugal pellet injector for the Tore Supra tokamak are being made by modifying the storage-type pellet feed system, which has been redesigned to improve the reliability of delivery of pellets and to extend operation to longer pulse durations (up to 400 pellets). Two-stage light gas guns and electron-beam (e-beam) rocket accelerators for speeds in the range from 2 to 10 km/s are also under development. A repeating, two-stage light gas gun that has been developed can accelerate low-density plastic pellets at a 1-Hz repetition rate to speeds of 3 km/s. In a collaboration with ENEA-Frascati, a test facility has been prepared to study repetitive operation of a two-stage gas gun driver equipped with an extrusion-type deuterium pellet source. Extensive testing of the e-beam accelerator has demonstrated a parametric dependence of propellant burn velocity and pellet speed, in accordance with a model derived from the neutral gas shielding theory for pellet ablation in a magnetized plasma.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 6940953
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-920930-13; ON: DE93003352
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
700460* -- Fusion Technology-- Heating & Fueling Systems
BEAMS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
ELECTRON BEAMS
FUEL INJECTION SYSTEMS
FUEL PELLETS
FUEL SYSTEMS
Fu
Fuels-- (1992)
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
LEPTON BEAMS
LIGHT NUCLEI
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
PARTICLE BEAMS
PELLET INJECTION
PELLETS
RADIOISOTOPES
TFTR TOKAMAK
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR FUELING
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TRITIUM
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES