EFDA-JET-CP(04)03/30

Investigation of Low Concentration Tritium ICRF Heating on JET

The 2003 JET Trace Tritium Experimental (TTE) campaign provided a rare opportunity to study Ion Cyclotron Resonance Frequency (ICRF) heating of Tritium (T) at low concentrations in deuterium plasmas. Accelerating the T minority at its fundamental cyclotron frequency (w = wcT) is a physically attractive though technically challenging heating scenario, which is currently outside the ITER RF system frequency range but would be quite relevant during its operation at low to moderate tritium concentrations. It was first very briefly investigated during the JET DTE1 experimental campaign of 1997 with ~5% T and on TFTR with up to 20%T. On JET it requires the highest equilibrium magnetic fields (B0 = 3.9 to 4T) and the lowest available generator frequency (~23MHz), at which only modest levels of ICRF power ~1.5MW are available. This scenario received most of the emphasis during the TTE ICRF experiments, as only one successful shot was available from DTE1. In a few other discharges tritium was accelerated at its second cyclotron harmonic (w = wcT at 37MHz with B0 = 3.7T). At higher T concentrations (50-50 D-T mix), this is the reference ITER scenario, investigated during the JET DTE1. The goal of the TTE discharges was to study the RF power deposition in the low concentration range. A detailed account of the latter experiment will be given elsewhere. In TTE, tritium was introduced either by gas puffs of ~5mg per discharge, or in a few instances by beam injection (~0.2mg in 300ms). The T plasma concentration reached levels estimated up to ~3%.
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EFDC040330 1.29 Mb