PO-ID : 346

28th NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON PLASMA SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY December 3-6, 2013; KIIT Bhubaneswar (INDIA)

Study of Pellet Fuelling Requirements for Aditya and SST-1 tokomak

J. Mishra, S. Mukherjee, P. Nayak, P. Panchal, N. Rastogi, R. Gangradey and N Ravipragash Institute for plasma research, Bhat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat-382428

Background and Motivation

Sustainment of ne is one of the key factor to achieve nuclear fusion reaction. Hence in high Te / fusion grade plasmas, replenishment of spent fuel is essential. Fuelling methods: Gas puffing : Ionization at outer plasma layer, Edge fuelling. Pellet fuelling : Injection of solid hydrogen (< 10 K) at high speed. Core penetration. Favorable method for fuelling. Also planned for ITER. This motivates to initiate pellet fuelling related study in IPR (SST-1 and Aditya tokomak plasma) to meet future challenges.
3 mm

Pellet ablation in plasma

Basic NGS model: Ablation mainly by electron heat flux. Heat flux is assumed to be carried by monoenergetic electron beam. Formation of Neutral Gas Shield around pellet. Self regulating dynamics and pellet life time enhancement. Pellet surface regression rate,

drp dt

= Crp

0.67

n T

1.64 eo eo

[ms ]

rp = pellet radius, C = Constant

Pellet fuelling requirements

Normalized penetration depth (/a): Scaling law using various tokomak experimental data. Flat plasma profile, and moderate / no external heating is assumed.

Pellet speed estimation

Applying scaling law, injection speed of a pellet in different plasma configuration is decided for core penetration of the pellet.

Inner half

Outer half Outer half

/a = CTe-5/9ne-1/9rp5/9Vp1/3 . /a has higher dependency on Te . Te strongly edged over Vp , It will be great challenge to fuel very high Te plasma.

Pellet speed needed for SST-1

Pellet speed needed for Aditya

Parameters
R [m] and a [m] Teo [keV] nebar [1019 m-3] Ip [kA] Pellet size [mm] Speed [km/s] Particle content [atom]

Aditya
0.75 and 0.25 < 0.5 1-2 70-100 ~ 1.0 < 0.4 ~ 4 x 1019

SST-1
1.1 and 0.2 0.4-3 2-3 100 200 ~ 1.6 0.4 1.0 ~ 1.7 x 1020 Outboard mid-plane

Pellet size for plasma fuelling

Required pellet size: Amount of particle that can be injected in a particular plasma configuration without disrupting it. Pellet size estimated considering Greenwald density limit. Cylindrical pellets of considered. equal diameter and length are

Injection location [Radial] Outboard mid-plane

Device for pellet Injection

Pellet injector

Controlling the pellet speed

Pipe gun type injector, Vp inside the barrel analytically modelled by ideal gun theory approximation. With sudden application of Pressure (p0):

2C0 ( + 1) [1 (1 + = V Ap P0t ) p (t ) ( 1) 2m p C0
Pipe gun injector limitation:

( 1) ( +1)

(Mechanical

punch

propellant):

Difficult to achieve Vp < 500 m/s.

Controlled Vp : 100 < Vp < 500 m/s .

Under progress

Device configuration GM cryo cooler, pellet form @ 5 K.

Diagnostics Light gate: Pellet speed measurement.

Pellet: 4 to 5 mm cylindrical; Vp : 700 1000 m/s. Shadowgraph: Pellet size and shape. Fuel gas: H2 ; Propellant: High pressure He. Imaging: Pellet ablation in plasma. Three stage differential pumping to restrict propellant flow into plasma vessel.

Achieved Results

Pellet size: 4 to 5 mm. Injector operation cycle: 1 shot / 5 minutes. Experimental Vp : 70 90 % of calculation. Maximum intact pellets found in the speed range of 750 850 m/s. Breaks at higher speed.

Conclusion
Considering the density limit in a tokamak, pellet size required to fuel SST-1 and Aditya plasma are estimated as 1 mm and 1.6 mm, respectively. With the help of NGS model, pellet speed needed for core fuelling is calculated. Analysis of parametric dependence of pellet penetration infers that, plasma Te plays a significant role in pellet ablation. Since a pellet size is a fixed parameter for a particular plasma, controlling of pellet speed is important for effective fuelling. A pipe gun based pellet injection system is developed at IPR for plasma fuelling.

Minimum pressure for Pellet detachment: ~ 9 bar. Further modifications and up-gradation are on process for broader operational range.

Expt. limit of P for pellet dislocation

Synchronizing with the plasma discharge, this injector is capable of injecting a 4 mm pellet at a speed ranging from 700 to 950 m/s. The pellet injector with appropriate pellet size will be integrated to tokamak for pellet fuelling studies.