IFMIF, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, is presently in its engineering validation and engineering design activities (EVEDA) phase under the Broader Approach Agreement. The engineering design activity (EDA) phase was successfully accomplished within the allocated time. The engineering validation activity (EVA) phase has focused on validating the Accelerator Facility (AF), the Target Facility and the Test Facility (TF) by constructing prototypes. The ELTL at JAEA, Oarai successfully demonstrated the long-term stability of a Li flow under the IFMIF’s nominal operational conditions keeping the specified free-surface fluctuations below ±1 mm in a continuous manner for 25 d. A full-scale prototype of the high flux test module (HFTM) was successfully tested in the HELOKA loop (KIT, Karlsruhe), where it was demonstrated that the irradiation temperature can be set individually and kept uniform. LIPAc, designed and constructed in European labs under the coordination of F4E, presently under installation and commissioning in the Rokkasho Fusion Institute, aims at validating the concept of IFMIF accelerators with a D+ beam of 125 mA continuous wave (CW) and 9 MeV. The commissioning phases of the H+/D+ beams at 100 keV are progressing and should be concluded in 2017; in turn, the commissioning of the 5 MeV beam is due to start during 2017. The D+ beam through the superconducting cavities is expected to be achieved within the Broader Approach Agreement time frame with the superconducting cryomodule being assembled in Rokkasho. The realisation of a fusion-relevant neutron source is a necessary step for the successful development of fusion. The ongoing success of the IFMIF/EVEDA involves ruling out concerns about potential technical showstoppers which were raised in the past. Thus, a situation has emerged where soon steps towards constructing a Li(d,xn) fusion-relevant neutron source could be taken, which is also justified in the light of costs which are marginal to those of a fusion plant.
Major issues of NBI power supplies are a high-speed switching, regulation and transmission of dc ultra high voltage, and suppression of surge energy input to the beam source at breakdown. A GTO(gate turn off thyristor) inverter type power supply where the control is performed at low voltage ac side was designed for the ITER NB. Based on the remarkable progress of a high power IEGT (injection enhanced gate transistor), the design of the inverter has been modified to increase an efficiency and compactness using such new elements. A power loss in the inverter is reduced to be 30% of the GTO inverter system. For the transmission line of the dc UHV with intermediate voltages, a disk shape multi-conductor bushing with a transmission line test chamber has been developed. Dimensions of the bushing are 1.8 m in diameter and 140 mm in thickness at the edge. Electric fields at the conductor surface and insulator surface were designed to be lower than 5 kV/mm and 7 kV/mm, respectively. An electric field at the bottom of the ground potential outer conductor was designed to be lower than 1.2 kV/mm to prevent particle levitation which triggers breakdowns. The prototype transmission line has passed the standard impulse test up to 1,300 kV. A dc UHV up to 1,175 kV was successfully sustained for 300 s. To prevent the electric damage of the beam source at the breakdown, core snubbers using Fe-based nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials are adopted to dissipate the surge energy. 1) Hitachi Ltd. , 2) Toshiba Co.
The current drive and heating properties of negative ion based NBI have been studied comprehensively in JT-60U. It has been confirmed from shine-through measurements of the injected beam (350 keV) that multistep ionization processes are essential in the ionization processes of high energy particles. The profile of the current density driven by a negative ion based NB (N-NB) has been determined experimentally. This is in good agreement with the theoretical prediction, and N-NB driven current reached 0.6 MA with EB = 360 keV and PINJ = 3.7 MW. The current drive efficiency ηCD is increased by increasing electron temperature and improved by increasing beam energy. The fast ions from N-NBs are well confined in the enhanced confinement core by the weak poloidal magnetic field of reversed shear plasmas. A clear H mode transition was obtained with N-NB dominant heating, where the net absorbed power required for an H mode transition seemed similar to the previous result obtained in JT-60U using a low energy beam (90 keV). With the strong electron heating by N-NBI (80% absorbed by electrons), an H factor ( = τE/τITER-89PLE) of 1.64 with Te(0) = 1.4Ti(0) was obtained in the steady state ELMy phase.
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