Studies of beam ion confinement to enhance plasma performance on EAST

A key physics issue for achieving steady-state high-performance plasmas on EAST tokamak is to decrease beam-ion losses to improve plasma confinement during neutral beam injections(NBIs).To decrease the beam losses,previous counter-I_(p)NBI injections are upgraded to co-I_(p)injections.Analysis shows that due to the reversed direction of drift across the flux surfaces caused by the pitch angle,the beam prompt loss fraction decreases from about 49%to 3%after the upgrade.Moreover,because of the change of entire beam path,beam shine-through(ST)loss fraction for counter-I_(p)tangential and counter-I_(p)perpendicular injections is reversed to co-I_(p)tangential and co-I_(p)perpendicular injections,respectively.Due to the change in the initial trapped-confined beam ion fraction caused by the peaked pitch profiles,the losses induced by toroidal ripple field are also reversed after the upgrade.To further improve the beam-ion confinement under the present NBI layout,the amplitudes of toroidal field are increased from 1.75 to 2.20 T.Result shows that,due to the smaller orbit width and peaked pitch angle profile,the beam prompt loss power is lower with higher toroidal field.Due to the synergy of higher initial trapped-confined beam ion fraction and narrower Goldston-White-Boozer(GWB)boundary,the loss induced by ripple diffusion is higher with higher toroidal field.The combined effect of beam ST loss,prompt loss and ripple loss,contributes to the increase in beam ion density.The decrease in beam loss power enhances beam heating efficiency,especially the fraction of beam heating ions.Finally,comparison between simulation and measurement by^(235)U fission chamber(FC)indicates that the increase in neutron rate is mainly contributed by improvement of beam-ion confinement.This study can provide potential support for beam operation and high-T_(i)experiment on EAST tokamak.

Primary Results of Lithium Coating for the Improvement of Plasma Performance in EAST

First lithium coating associated with ion cyclotron range of frequency （ICRF） plasma was performed successfully in EAST. Results in reduction of both residual impurity and deuterium in the vacuum vessel were obtained. Particularly the partial pressure of deuterium after the lithium coating was reduced by about a factor of 5. Impurity radiation in the plasma was reduced and electron temperature increased by about 50%. Moreover, reproducible plasma discharges with high parameters, such as higher plasma current and density, could be easily obtained. These results showed that plasma performance was improved. Even though only 2 g of lithium were injected, the effective lifetime of the Li film was raised up to 40 shots.

Enhanced Plasma Performance by ICRF Boronization

Boronization with carborane (C2B10H12) by ICRF has been applied routinely to the walls of HT-7 super-conducting tokamak for the reduction of impurity influx, especially carbon and oxygen. Significant suppression of metallic impurities and radiating power fraction are achieved. The improved confinement for both particle and energy is observed in full range of operation parameters. Energy balance analysis shows that electron heat diffusion coefficient is strongly reduced. Measurements by Langmuir probes at the edge plasma show that the poloidal velocity shear after boronization is changed to a profile favoring to good confinement. The main emphasis of this paper is to describe effects of boronization on aspects of the enhanced plasma performance.

Influence of air pressure on the performance of plasma synthetic jet actuator

Plasma synthetic jet actuator（PSJA） has a wide application prospect in the high-speed flow control field for its high jet velocity.In this paper,the influence of the air pressure on the performance of a two-electrode PSJA is investigated by the schlieren method in a large range from 7 k Pa to 100 k Pa.The energy consumed by the PSJA is roughly the same for all the pressure levels.Traces of the precursor shock wave velocity and the jet front velocity vary a lot for different pressures.The precursor shock wave velocity first decreases gradually and then remains at 345 m/s as the air pressure increases.The peak jet front velocity always appears at the first appearance of a jet,and it decreases gradually with the increase of the air pressure.A maximum precursor shock wave velocity of 520 m/s and a maximum jet front velocity of 440 m/s are observed at the pressure of 7 k Pa.The averaged jet velocity in one period ranges from 44 m/s to 54 m/s for all air pressures,and it drops with the rising of the air pressure.High velocities of the precursor shock wave and the jet front indicate that this type of PSJA can still be used to influence the high-speed flow field at 7 k Pa.

Influence of Cathode Materials on Opening Performance of Plasma Opening Switch

Experiments have been conducted on a plasma opening switch (POS) test-bed to investigate the influence of cathode materials made of aluminum, stainless steel, molybdenum and tungsten on opening performance for conduction time up to 3 microseconds, conduction current up to 100 kA. Remarkaly different opening characteristics have been shown for these materials,with tungsten being of the best opening performance.

Pellet Injection Experiments in the HL-2A Tokamak

The advantages of pellet injection as a competitive means of fuelling a tokamak are well known. They include： （ 1 ） deep deposition of fuel, （ 2 ） better fuelling efficiency, （ 3 ） purer plasma, and so on. Meanwhile, improving plasma performance by pellet injection has been proven in many tokamak experiments. The deposition of pellet particles following pellet injection causes a temporal change of the local plasma temperature and density gradients which affects the transport properties of the plasma, so pellet injection can be used as a method of studying the transport process as well.