Proposal of actively heated, long stem based Cs delivery system for diagnostic neutral beam source in ITER

Positioning of Cesium (Cs) oven modules in the complex interface dominated space envelope of a negative ion source such as Diagnostic Neutral Beam (DNB) source for ITER is a challenge not only for the designer of the ion source, but also that of remote handling. A more user friendly design of the Cs delivery could emerge from the consideration of a possibility of injecting the Cs from an oven located outside the vacuum envelope of the ion source, thereby ensuring an ease of Cs refilling and oven maintenance. The design of such a delivery system involves long transmission path of lengths ∼4 m, from ambient to vacuum. System design involves incorporation of a low loss transmission tube enveloped by highly reflective inner surface pipe to reduce the heat losses and therefore heating of the nearby systems. A combination of all metallic valves operated at high temperatures has been incorporated in such a way that the Cs refilling or oven maintenance can be done without breaking the ion source vacuum. Removable joints in the oven heating elements are provided at specific locations to remove the Cs oven for ion source maintenance. Experimental data on Cs transmission over such a long length, required for an effective design of a co-axial transmission, is not presently available. However, an experiment has been carried out in ITER-India making measurements of Cs distribution in coaxial transmission of a length of more than 5 m. These experiments incorporate an additional feature of multiple nozzle distributor based Cs delivery into the ion source which might help in reducing the need of multiple Cs ovens in large ion sources like ITER. The Cs flux from the oven is measured by surface ionization detector (SID). The angular distribution of the Cs flux is measured by a movable SID in linear direction and has been found in good agreement with the calculations. The Cs inventory in the oven reservoir was measured by electrical resistivity measurements methods. The paper proposes to present the measurement results and also proposes a possible configuration of the Cs oven for ITER DNB ion source.