Supersonic gas injector for plasma fueling

V. A. Soukhanovskii, H. W. Kugel, R. Kaita, A. L. Roquemore, M. Bell, W. Blanchard, C. Bush, R. Gernhardt, G. Gettelfinger, T. Gray, R. Majeski, J. Menard, T. Provost, P. Sichta, R. Raman

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

A supersonic gas injector (SGI) has been developed for fueling and diagnostic applications on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). It is comprised of a graphite converging-diverging Laval nozzle and a commercial piezoelectric gas valve mounted on a movable probe at a low field side midplane port location. Also mounted on the probe is a diagnostic package: a Langmuir probe, two thermocouples and five pick-up coils for measuring toroidal, radial, vertical magnetic field components and magnetic fluctuations at the location of the SGI tip. The SGI flow rate is up to 4 × 1021 particles/s, comparable to conventional NSTX gas injectors. The nozzle operates in a pulsed regime at room temperature and a reservoir gas pressure up to 0.33 MPa. The deuterium jet Mach number of about 4, and the divergence half-angle of 5° - 25° have been measured in laboratory experiments simulating NSTX environment. In initial NSTX experiments reliable operation of the SGI and all mounted diagnostics at distances 1-20 cm from the plasma separatrix has been demonstrated. The SGI has been used for fueling of ohmic and 2-4 MW NBI heated L- and H-mode plasmas. Fueling efficiency in the range 0.1 - 0.3 has been obtained from the plasma electron inventory analysis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication21st IEEE/NPS Symposium on Fusion Engineering, SOFE'05
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
Event21st IEEE/NPS Symposium on Fusion Engineering, SOFE'05 - Knoxville, TN, United States
Duration: Sep 26 2005Sep 29 2005

Publication series

NameProceedings - Symposium on Fusion Engineering

Conference

Conference21st IEEE/NPS Symposium on Fusion Engineering, SOFE'05
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityKnoxville, TN
Period9/26/059/29/05

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering

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