Search arXivSearch

arXiv · 1309.4644

Design and operations of load-tolerant external conjugate-T matching system for the A2 ICRH antennas at JET

Abstract

A load-tolerant External Conjugate-T (ECT) impedance matching system for two A2 Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH) antennas has been successfully put into operation at JET. The system allows continuous injection of the RF power into plasma in the presence of strong antenna loading perturbations caused by Edge Localized Modes (ELMs). Reliable ECT performance has been demonstrated under a variety of antenna loading conditions including H-mode plasmas with Radial Outer Gaps (ROG) in the range of 4-14 cm. The high resilience to ELMs predicted during the circuit simulations has been fully confirmed experimentally. Dedicated arc detection techniques and real-time matching algorithms have been developed as a part of the ECT project. The new Advanced Wave Amplitude Comparison System (AWACS) has proven highly efficient in detection of arcs both between and during ELMs. The ECT system has allowed the delivery of up to 4 MW of RF power without trips into plasmas with Type-I ELMs. Together with the 3dB system and the ITER-Like Antenna (ILA), the ECT has brought the total RF power coupled to ELMy plasma to over 8 MW, considerably enhancing JET research capabilities. This paper provides an overview of the key design features of the ECT system and summarizes the main experimental results achieved so far.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

I Monakhov, M Graham, T Blackman, S Dowson, F Durodie, P Jacquet, J Lehmann, M-L Mayoral, M P S Nightingale, C Noble, H Sheikh, M Vrancken, A Walden, A Whitehurst, E Wooldridge, JET-EFDA contributors. 2013-09-18. Design and operations of load-tolerant external conjugate-T matching system for the A2 ICRH antennas at JET. https://doi.org/10.1088/0029-5515%2F53%2F8%2F083013

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Runaway electron interactions with whistler waves in tokamak plasmas: energy-dependent transport scaling

Resonant interactions between high energy runaway electrons (REs) and whistler waves are a promising mechanism for RE mitigation in tokamak plasmas. While prior studies have largely relied on quasi-linear diffusion models in simplified geometries, we present a first-principles-informed framework that models RE-whistler interactions in a 3D tokamak equilibrium. This is achieved by coupling AORSA, which computes whistler eigenmodes for a given tokamak plasma equilibrium, and KORC, a kinetic orbit code that tracks full orbit RE trajectories in prescribed wave fields. Our results demonstrate that REs undergo scattering to large pitch angles and exhibit anomalous diffusion in both pitch-angle and kinetic energy space. Crucially, we observe a transition between diffusive, sub-diffusive, and super-diffusive transport regimes as a function of initial RE energy - an effect not captured by existing quasi-linear models. This anomalous transport behavior represents a significant advancement in understanding RE dynamics in the presence of wave - particle interactions. By identifying the conditions under which anomalous diffusion arises, this work lays the theoretical foundation for designing targeted, wave-based mitigation strategies in future tokamak experiments.

physics.plasm-ph

Geodesic Acoustic Modes in pair plasmas confined in tokamak magnetic fields

This paper is devoted to the derivation of the dispersion relation of the Geodesic Acoustic Mode in pair plasmas, i.e. assuming that ions and electrons have the same mass. Geodesic Acoustic Modes are plasma perturbations playing a crucial role in turbulence regulation, and therefore in the determination of the plasma confinement in tokamaks. Experiments with pair plasmas, like electron-positron plasmas, have been proposed with different kinds of confinements, and aim to study fundamental processes in plasma physics and understanding the formation of the early universe.

physics.plasm-ph

Horizon-Aware Early Event Prediction for Tokamak Disruption Alarms

Reliable disruption prediction is essential for the safe operation of future tokamaks. Existing full-distribution survival methods model the complete residual time-to-disruption distribution, whereas operational decisions primarily depend on disruption risk within a finite prediction horizon. This mismatch motivates introducing Early Event Prediction (EEP) objectives into survival-based disruption prediction. We take Deep Survival Machines (DSM) as the full-distribution baseline and propose applying two established EEP methods to tokamak disruption prediction: Temporal Label Smoothing (TLS), which directly predicts disruption probability within a finite horizon, and survTLS, which additionally models the event-time distribution within that horizon. Using a common causal encoder, we compare these methods on DIII-D, Alcator C-Mod, and EAST. We distinguish threshold-free deadline ranking from validation-selected fixed-policy alarm performance and evaluate prediction horizons and encoder architectures. TLS achieves the best mean alarm performance on DIII-D and EAST, whereas all methods perform poorly on Alcator C-Mod. survTLS does not consistently outperform DSM, suggesting that directly learning horizon-level event probability is more effective than modeling detailed within-horizon event-time distributions in the present setting. Finally, the selected prediction horizons and encoder-ablation results vary across devices, reflecting differences in disruption characteristics.

physics.plasm-ph