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A pellet injection system operating at 20 Hz has been operated in KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) since 2016. This system can inject pellets with various size, velocity, and frequency to the KSTAR vacuum vessel during plasma experiments. Various experiments such as peak density control, enhancement of confinement by increasing core beta, and NTM stabilization were carried out with the pellet injection system in 2018. Most of all, the characteristics of the pellet should be studied to better understand the interaction with plasma. The pellet trajectory is one of the interesting topics in KSTAR and therefore a related investigation was carried out outside of the tokamak first. We introduce the preliminary results of the trajectory test, the pellet velocity tendency, and a plasma experiment in this paper.

20 Hz pellet injection system was installed for improving a fueling system of KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) in 2016. Several things of hardware such as a liquid helium transfer line, an extruder nozzle and an extension part of pellet guide tube are changed for 2017 campaign. For plasma experiments, the pellet injection system uses the smallest pellet (1.5 mm of length, 2 mm of diameter). The pellet velocity can be variable from 150 m/s to over 200 m/s by controlling of propellant gas pressure. The clear increase of plasma density observed during KSTAR experiments is also presented in this paper.

Since the first plasma was achieved in 2008, the quench detection system for the Korea Superconducting Advanced Tokamak Research (KSTAR) coils has been successfully operated. Simple bridge circuits and cowound voltage sensors were used for the first quench detectors. In order to enhance the reliability and stability of the quench detection especially for the pulse coils such as the KSTAR CS coil, a couple of schemes to actively reject inductive voltages have been added and tested. They have focused on rejecting as much inductive voltages as possible and increasing the noise rejection ratio (NRR) because the inductive voltage noise is a main factor to disturb the stable quench detection. One scheme is to use the voltage difference between two balanced bridge voltages or two voltages of cowound voltage sensors, where each voltage is the voltage across each of two coils having the same electrical currents and structurally symmetry. The other is to use the voltage difference between the measured voltage and the calculated voltage. With the additional schemes, inductive voltages were reduced so that the NRR could substantially increase up to 20 000. In this paper, the upgraded quench detection system was described for the KSTAR PF1 coil and the performance results were presented together with experimental data in the 2016 KSTAR campaign.

The primary quench detection system of the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device has been operated in technical and plasma experiments for eight years. Cowound-type quench detectors have exhibited distinct performance of compensation for both self-induction and mutual induction; on the other hand, some cowound strips tended to break in the long-term operation. In contrast, Wheatstone bridge (WB)-type quench detectors had no wire breakage, and their signal wires are still accessible and repairable. Therefore, WB-type quench detectors are very important to be a backup method of quench detection for the coils. New WBs using a half-bridge at a fixed ratio of resistances of 1:1 were tested in the KSTAR operation. Upper-lower comparison of the new WBs performed good compensation for induced voltage. The new WBs clearly demonstrated that the bridge circuits may become very simple, and in situ calibration may be unnecessary if the arrangement of voltage taps and quench detectors is optimized with respect to the magnetic field of the tokamak device.

Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device has been successfully operated for the plasma experiment from KSTAR 1st campaign to 4th campaign. The main pumping system for the cryostat has to maintain the target pressure below 1.0 × 10−4 mbar at room temperature and 1.0 × 10−5 mbar at extremely low temperature for the plasma experiment against the air leak coming from ports of vessel and/or the helium leak from cooling loops in the cryostat. No leak has been detected at room temperature. Unexpectedly, the cold-leak appeared in the cryostat at temperature around 50 K during the cool-down in the KSTAR 2nd campaign. We carefully analyzed the characteristics of detected cold leak because it can cause the increase of the base pressure in the cryostat. After the cool-down, the leak detection was performed to locate the position and size of the leak by the pressurizing the loops. As a result, it is found that the cold leak was located at cooling loops for PF/CS coils and CS structure. Nevertheless, the vacuum inside the cryostat was well maintained below 6.0 × 10−8 mbar during the entire operation period. The impact of the He-leak in present status on the plasma operation is negligible. However, we have found that the leak rate increases as a function of time. Therefore careful monitoring on cold-leak is an important technical issue for the operation of superconducting tokamak.

Plasma polymerized styrene (ppS) thin films were prepared on ITO coated glass substrates for a MIM (metal-insulator-metal) structure with thermally evaporated Au thin film as metal contact. Also the ppS thin films were applied as organic insulator to a MIS (metal-insulatorsemiconductor) device with thermally evaporated pentacene thin film as organic semiconductor layer. After the I-V and C-V measurements with MIM and MIS structures, the ppS revealed relatively higher dielectric constant of k

The function of the current feeder system (CFS) is for conducting large currents from the power supplies to the KSTAR superconducting (SC) magnets. The CFS consists of SC bus-lines, joints, and current leads. The bus-line conductor is a circular cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC), which consists of a 4.5 mm thick stainless steel 316L seamless pipe containing 324 strands of chrome coated NbTi superconductor and 243 strands of OFHC. The ends of the CICC are assembled with specially designed lap joints. The joining resistance is controlled to less than 2.5 nano-ohm to minimize Joule heating. The outer surfaces of the CICC were electrically insulated up to 15 kV with jackets made of Kapton film and prepreged E-glass tape. Helically wrapped conducting fiber was used to measure the voltages of bus-line quenches. Two pairs of prototype brass leads for poloidal field (PF) and toroidal field (TF) coils have been fabricated and tested up to the currents of 26 kA for the PF leads and 35 kA for the TF leads. The test results satisfied all the requirements so that all 18 leads were manufactured and assembled on site. This paper will describe the detailed manufacturing progress and commissioning results of the KSTAR CFS.

The cryogenic system for the KSTAR superconducting (SC) magnets has been commissioned. It consists of a cold box, distribution boxes (DB) and cryogenic transfer lines. The cold box and DB #1 provide 600 g/s of supercritical helium to cool the SC magnets, their SC bus-lines, and the magnet support structures. It also provides 17.5 g/s of liquid helium to the current leads and supplies cold helium flow to the thermal shields. The main duties of the DB #2 are the relative distribution of the cryogenic helium among the cooling channels of each KSTAR cold component and the emergency release of over-pressurized helium during abnormal events such as quenches of the SC magnets. After individual commissioning, the system was integrated and cooled down with the KSTAR device. In this paper, the construction and commissioning results of the KSTAR cryogenic system will be introduced. In addition, we will present the cool-down results of the KSTAR device.

The KSTAR components requiring cryogenic helium coolant for superconducting magnet operations are connected to the helium refrigeration system (HRS) through the helium distribution system (HDS), the final helium distribution station. Twenty eight cryogenic valves including 4 quench protecting valves, many sensors such as temperature sensors, pressure transmitters, and flowmeters are mounted on the system. The HDS has to control the 4.5 K supercritical helium (600 g/s) for 30 superconducting coils and their superconducting bus-lines, 55 K helium (270 g/s) pressurized to 18 bars for the thermal shields and the gravity supports, and a maximum 17.5 g/s of liquid helium for 18 current leads, provided from the HRS which has a 4.5 K equivalent cooling power of 9 kW. The helium distribution system consists of a helium distribution box (DB), 5 helium transfer lines, a PLC based helium control system (HCS), etc. The helium control system is connected to the KSTAR supervisory control & interlock system. The detailed status regarding the construction, commissioning during first cool-down, and the instrumentation & control (I&C) system are included in this paper.

Current feeder system (CFS) for Korea superconducting tokamak advanced research(KSTAR) project plays a role to interconnect magnet power supply (MPS) and superconducting (SC) magnets through the normal bus-bar at the room temperature(300 K) environment and the SC bus-line at the low temperature (4.5 K) environment. It is divided by two systems, i.e., toroidal field system which operates at 35 kA DC currents and poloidal field system wherein 2026 kA pulsed currents are applied during 350 s transient time. Aside from the vacuum system of main cryostat, an independent vacuum system was constructed for the CFS in which a roughing system is consisted by a rotary and a mechanical booster pump and a high vacuum system is developed by four cryo-pumps with one dry pump as a backing pump. A self interlock and its control system, and a supervisory interlock and its control system are also established for the operational reliability as well. The entire CFS was completely tested including the reliability of local/supervisory control/interlock, helium gas leakage, vacuum pressure, and so on.

KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) current lead system (CLS) has a role to interconnect magnet power supply (MPS) in room temperature (300 K) and superconducting (SC) bus-line, electrically. For the first plasma experiments, it should be assembled 4 current leads (CL) on toroidal field (TF) current lead box (CLB) and 14 leads on poloidal field (PF) CLB. Two current leads, with the design currents 17.5 kA, and SC bus-lines are connected in parallel to supply 35 kA DC currents on TF magnet. Whereas, it could supply to each pairs of PF magnets during more than 350 s. At the cold terminals of the leads, there are joined SC bus-lines and it was constructed helium coolant control system, aside from main tokamak system, to protect heat flux through current leads and enhanced Joule heat due to supplied currents. Throughout the establishment processes, it was tested the high vacuum pumping, helium leak of the helium lines and hardwares mounted between the helium lines, flow controls for CL, and liquid nitrogen cool-down of possible parts (current leads, CL helium lines, and thermal shield helium lines for CLB), for the accomplishment of the required performances.

The KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) superconducting magnet system adopts a superconducting CICC(Cable-In-Conduit Conductor) type conductor. It consists of 16 TF (Toroidal Field) coils and 14 PF (Poroidal Field) coils and it also uses two different types of CICCs-Nb3Sn cable with Incoloy 908 conduit and NbTi cable with 316LN stainless-steel conduit. A special CICC jacketing system is developed for the KSTAR CICC fabrication: the tube-mill process, which consists of forming, welding, sizing and squaring procedure. The cabling process for TF and PF superconducting cable and the fabrication process of each CICCs (TF CICC and PF CICC) is described. The welding of conduit materials are also discussed. The fabrication results such as the geometrical specification, micro structure and the void fraction will be discussed

Since the first H-mode discharges in 2010, the duration of the H-mode state has been extended and a significantly wider operational window of plasma parameters has been attained. Using a second neutral beam (NB) source and improved tuning of equilibrium configuration with real-time plasma control, a stored energy of Wtot???450?kJ has been achieved with a corresponding energy confinement time of ?E???163?ms. Recent discharges, produced in the fall of 2012, have reached plasma ?N up to 2.9 and surpassed the n?=?1 ideal no-wall stability limit computed for H-mode pressure profiles, which is one of the key threshold parameters defining advanced tokamak operation. Typical H-mode discharges were operated with a plasma current of 600?kA at a toroidal magnetic field BT?=?2?T. L?H transitions were obtained with 0.8?3.0?MW of NB injection power in both single- and double-null configurations, with H-mode durations up to ?15?s at 600?kA of plasma current. The measured power threshold as a function of line-averaged density showed a roll-over with a minimum value of ?0.8?MW at . Several edge-localized mode (ELM) control techniques during H-mode were examined with successful results including resonant magnetic perturbation, supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI), vertical jogging and electron cyclotron current drive injection into the pedestal region. We observed various ELM responses, i.e. suppression or mitigation, depending on the relative phase of in-vessel control coil currents. In particular, with the 90? phase of the n?=?1 RMP as the most resonant configuration, a complete suppression of type-I ELMs was demonstrated. In addition, fast vertical jogging of the plasma column was also observed to be effective in ELM pace-making. SMBI-mitigated ELMs, a state of mitigated ELMs, were sustained for a few tens of ELM periods. A simple cellular automata (?sand-pile?) model predicted that shallow deposition near the pedestal foot induced small-sized high-frequency ELMs, leading to the mitigation of large ELMs. In addition to the ELM control experiments, various physics topics were explored focusing on ITER-relevant physics issues such as the alteration of toroidal rotation caused by both electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and externally applied 3D fields, and the observed rotation drop by ECRH in NB-heated plasmas was investigated in terms of either a reversal of the turbulence-driven residual stress due to the transition of ion temperature gradient to trapped electron mode turbulence or neoclassical toroidal viscosity (NTV) torque by the internal kink mode. The suppression of runaway electrons using massive gas injection of deuterium showed that runaway electrons were avoided only below 3?T in KSTAR. Operation in 2013 is expected to routinely exceed the n?=?1 ideal MHD no-wall stability boundary in the long-pulse H-mode (?10?s) by applying real-time shaping control, enabling n?=?1 resistive wall mode active control studies. In addition, intensive works for ELM mitigation, ELM dynamics, toroidal rotation changes by both ECRH and NTV variations, have begun in the present campaign, and will be investigated in more detail with profile measurements of different physical quantities by techniques such as electron cyclotron emission imaging, charge exchange spectroscopy, Thomson scattering and beam emission spectroscopy diagnostics.

Since the successful first plasma generation in the middle of 2008, three experimental campaigns were successfully made for the KSTAR device, accompanied with a necessary upgrade in the power supply, heating, wall-conditioning and diagnostic systems. KSTAR was operated with the toroidal magnetic field up to 3.6 T and the circular and shaped plasmas with current up to 700 kA and pulse length of 7 s, have been achieved with limited capacity of PF magnet power supplies. The mission of the KSTAR experimental program is to achieve steady-state operations with high performance plasmas relevant to ITER and future reactors. The first phase (2008–2012) of operation of KSTAR is dedicated to the development of operational capabilities for a super-conducting device with relatively short pulse. Development of start-up scenario for a super-conducting tokamak and the understanding of magnetic field errors on start-up are one of the important issues to be resolved. Some specific operation techniques for a super-conducting device are also developed and tested. The second harmonic pre-ionization with 84 and 110 GHz gyrotrons is an example. Various parameters have been scanned to optimize the pre-ionization. Another example is the ICRF wall conditioning (ICWC), which was routinely applied during the shot to shot interval. The plasma operation window has been extended in terms of plasma beta and stability boundary. The achievement of high confinement mode was made in the last campaign with the first neutral beam injector and good wall conditioning. Plasma control has been applied in shape and position control and now a preliminary kinetic control scheme is being applied including plasma current and density. Advanced control schemes will be developed and tested in future operations including active profiles, heating and current drives and control coil-driven magnetic perturbation.