CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF A 1MV, 15 A POWER SUPPLY FOR THE ITER NEUTRAL BEAM INJECTORS

ABSTRACT High energy neutral beams (0.5-1.3 MV) provide a promising method of heating and driving current on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Such a system would have to deliver up to 75 MW of D° at 1. MeV range from 9 injector modules. In the European design each module contains 2 D−plasma sources coupled to a multi-grid, multi-aperture electrostatic accelerator, which must produce 15 A of accelerated D−ions. Power supplies are not currently available to energize such an accelerator, and research into several different concepts is being pursued in collaboration with European industry. In this paper, the requisite power supply characteristics are described, then three different concepts are discussed. As the industrial contracts were let at an early date, the study was actually carried out for a 1 MV 15 A power supply, but all the solutions proposed are directly applicable to a 0.5-1.5 MV, 15 A supply.