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World Record of Super High Power Millimeter Wavelength Heating System on JT-60




Fig. 3-9 Main parts of the millimeter (mm) wavelength rf heating system for JT-60 composed of a super high power mm wave oscillator called GYROTRON, special circular waveguide (WG), power supply and control system

JAERI is the first in the world to have demonstrated 1 MW, long pulse, high efficiency performance of the gyrotron in the frequency range of 100 GHz.


Table 3-1 Major parameters of an unit of the rf heating system for electron heating and current drive

Four units of the same system for JT-60 and 24 units of the same system for ITER are used, respectively.



Fig. 3-10 World status of the injected power into plasma vs. pulse length for each unit of rf heating system in the frequency range 80-170 GHz

This result of JT-60 for 5 s injection has confirmed thermal equilibrium of the main rf components of the system and has verified the engineering basis for continuous operation in ITER.




The high performance millimeter wavelength radiofrequency (rf) heating system at 110 GHz for electron heating and current drive in the plasma (Fig. 3-9) was developed to study how to enhance the plasma parameters in the JT-60 tokamak.
Fig. 3-10 shows the injected power vs. pulse length for each unit of the rf heating system in the frequency range of 80 GHz-170 GHz for international fusion experiments. So far the pulse length was limited to 0.6 s at a level of 0.8 MW due to the unexpected overheating of the main components. Recently the high power of 0.8 MW and long pulse of 5 s has firstly been demonstrated in the operation of JT-60.
The number of units is 4 in JT-60 and 24 for ITER. Tab. 3-1 shows the major parameters of an unit of the heating system. The injected power achieved exceeds the design value for ITER. This world record comes from the R&D stabilization of the gyrotron oscillation itself, optimization of the transmission line (a circular waveguide of 60 m i.e. nearly the same value as required for ITER, etc. Long pulse injection of 5 s has confirmed the thermal equilibrium of the main rf components and verified the technical basis of continuous operation for ITER.
This result of JT-60 has confirmed the feasibility of the construction of the mm wavelength rf heating system for ITER.



Reference
Y. Ikeda et al., The 110 GHz Electron Cyclotron Range of Frequency System on JT-60: Design and Operation, Fusion Sci. Technol., 42, 435 (2002).

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Persistent Quest Research Activities 2002
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