The use of curved guide tubes for transporting frozen H pellets offers great flexibility for pellet infection into plasma devices. While this technique has been previously employed, an increased interest in its applicability has been generated with the recent ASDEX Upgrade experimental data for magnetic high-field side (HFS) pellet injection. In these innovative experiments, the pellet penetration appeared to be significantly deeper than for the standard magnetic low-field side infection scheme, along with corresponding greater fueling efficiencies. Thus, some of the major experimental fusion devices are planning experiments with HFS pellet injection. Because of the complex geometries of experimental fusion devices, installations with multiple curved guide tube sections will be required for HFS pellet injection. To more thoroughly understand and document the capability of curved guide tubes, an experimental study is underway at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In particular, configurations and pellet parameters applicable for the DIII-D tokamak and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) were simulated in laboratory experiments. Initial test results with nominal 2.7- and 10-mm-diam deuterium pellets are presented and discussed.
[1]
R. V. Carlson,et al.
Tritium Proof-of-Principle Injector Experiment
,
1988
.
[2]
S. K. Combs,et al.
Pellet injection technology
,
1993
.
[3]
S. K. Combs,et al.
Simple pipe gun for hydrogen pellet injection
,
1986
.
[4]
M. J. Gouge,et al.
Pellet fueling system for ITER
,
1992
.
[5]
S. K. Combs,et al.
Operation of a repeating pneumatic hydrogen pellet injector on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor
,
1986
.
[6]
K. Büchl,et al.
LAUNCHING OF D 2 -PELLETS THROUGH GUIDE TUBES
,
1983
.
[7]
S. K. Combs,et al.
Fast‐opening magnetic valve for high‐pressure gas injection and applications to hydrogen pellet fueling systems
,
1986
.
[8]
Peter Lang,et al.
High-efficiency plasma refuelling by pellet injection from the magnetic high-field side into ASDEX upgrade
,
1997
.
[9]
S. K. Combs,et al.
Repeating pneumatic hydrogen pellet injector for plasma fueling
,
1985
.