Fast wave current drive system design for DIII-D

摘要

DIII-D has a major effort underway to develop the physics and technology of fast wave electron heating and current drive in conjunction with electron cyclotron heating. The present system consists of a four strap antenna driven by one 2 MW transmitter in the 32--60 MHz band. Experiments have been successful in demonstrating the physics of heating and current drive. In order to validate fast wave current drive for future machines a greater power capability is necessary to drive all of the plasma current. Advanced tokamak modeling for DIII-D has indicated that this goal can be met for plasma configurations of interest (i.e. high (beta) VH-mode discharges) with 8 MW of transmitter fast wave capability. It is proposed that four transmitters drive fast wave antennas at three locations in DIII-D to provide the power for current drive and current profile modification. As the next step in acquiring this capability, two modular four strap antennas are in design and the procurement of a high power transmitter in the 30--120 MHz range is in progress. Additionally, innovations in the technology are being investigated, such as the use of a coupled combine antenna to reduce the number of required feedthroughs and to provide for parallel phase velocity variation with a relatively small change in frequency, and the use of fast ferrite tuners to provide millisecond timescale impedance matching. A successful test of a low power fast ferrite prototype was conducted on DIII-D.