The THESEUS facility — A test environment for the Torus exhaust vacuum pumping system of a fusion power plant

摘要

At KIT Karlsruhe, a new vacuum pump concept for fusion power plants is under development. This concept consists of three pump types, namely a vapour diffusion pump as primary pump, a metal foil pump that provides a sharp gas separation of unburnt fuel (pure deuterium/tritium) and a liquid ring pump as backing pump. As special feature, diffusion pump and ring pump apply mercury as working fluid due to its perfect tritium compatibility. All three pump types require a proof-of-principle testing as their performance cannot be predicted easily. For these experiments, a dedicated experimental facility called THESEUS is currently being set up. This facility allows experiments with nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, deuterium and helium as fusion relevant test gases in a pressure range from 10