Design and Operation of Antennas at the Ion Cyclotron and Lower Hybrid Range of Frequencies for Nuclear Fusion Reactors PDF Download

Author: Walid Helou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The thesis provides at first a brief introduction to magnetic nuclear fusion and tokamaks. It explains the need for auxiliary plasma heating and current-drive electromagnetic systems at the Ion Cyclotron and Lower Hybrid Range of Frequencies (ICRF and LHRF). The thesis then sets antenna specifications that allow satisfying proper plasma wave propagation and proper wave-particle resonance. The Radio Frequency (RF) network solver SIDON developed for this thesis is then presented. The thesis then discusses the different types of ICRF antennas and details the challenges of the impedance matching in ICRF arrays of straps. WEST ICRF launchers are discussed in great detail and simulations of impedance matching scenarios for these launchers using SIDON are reported. The thesis reports on the low-power (milliwatt range) testbed that has been developed for WEST ICRF launchers, as well as the low-power tests of the first one among them. Furthermore, high power (megawatt range) experiments on plasma with the JET ICRF ITER-Like Antenna are reported. The thesis then provides an overview about existing LHRF antennas and discusses the numerical modeling of the coupling of waveguide phased arrays to the plasma. The RF design of ASTARTE-LP and its feeding circuit is discussed. ASTARTE-LP is a low-power (milliwatt range) prototype LHRF antenna based on the Slotted Waveguide Antenna concept that has been designed and built to perform proof of principle experiments on the COMPASS tokamak. The experimental validation of ASTARTE-LP and its feeding circuit before the experiments on COMPASS, as well as the experiments performed on COMPASS plasmas are reported.