Search

The deuterium-tritium (D-T) experimental program on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) is underway and routine tritium operations have been established. The technology upgrades made to the TFTR facility have been demonstrated to be sufficient for supporting both operations and maintenance for an extended D-T campaign. To date fusion power has been increased to {approximately}9 MW and several physics results of importance to the D-T reactor regime have been obtained: electron temperature, ion temperature, and plasma stored energy all increase substantially in the D-T regime relative to the D-D regime at the same neutral beam power and comparable limiter conditioning; possible alpha electron heating is indicated and energy confinement improvement with average ion mass is observed; and alpha particle losses appear to be classical with no evidence of TAE mode activity up to the P{sub FUS} {approximately}6 MW level. Instability in the TAE mode frequency range has been observed at P{sub FUS} > 7 MW and its effect on performance is under investigation. Preparations are underway to enhance the alpha particle density further by increasing fusion power and by extending the neutral beam pulse length to permit alpha particle effects of relevance to the ITER regime to be more fullymore » explored.« less

A neutral beam source will be incorporated in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) charge exchange diagnostic to provide a time modulated, spatially localized enhancement of the charge exchange efflux. Two autonomous Charge Exchange Neutral Analyzer (CENA) systems are being designed for the TFTR. One system measures the plasma ion temperature along twelve vertical line-of-sight chords spaced approximately equidistantly across the torus minor diameter. The other system is dedicated primarily to measurement of ion phenomena associated with neutral beam injection heating and has a fan-like field of view along eight sight-lines in the equitorial plane. The neutral beam is steerable in order to access the viewing field of both CENA systems, though in general not simultaneously. The performance of the diagnostic neutral beam is evaluated to determine the optimal beam specifications for active charge exchange measurements. Using the optimal beam design parameters, the efficacy of the neutral doping is examined for both CENA systems over the envisioned range of the TFTR plasma density and temperature.

The reactor performance is considered for intensely beam-driven tokamak plasmas with 50:50 D-T composition maintained by neutral-beam injection of both D and T, together with plasma recycling. The D and T are injected with equal intensity and velocity. This mode of operation is most appropriate for high-duty- factor, high-power-density operation, in the absence of pellet injection. The isotropic velocity distributions of energetic D and T ions (for multi-angle injection) are calculated from a simple slowing-down model, but include a tail above the injection velocity. The neutron source characteristics are determined from fusion reactivities calculated for beam-target, hot-ion, and thermonuclear reactions. For conditions where Q approximates 1, beam-target reactions are dominant, although reactions among the hot ions contribute substantially to P/sub fusion/ when n/sub hot//n /sub e/ greater than or equal to 0.2. (auth)