The heating neutral beam injectors (HNBs) of ITER are designed to deliver 16.7 MW of 1 MeV D 0 or 0.87 MeV H 0 to the ITER plasma for up to 3600 s. They will be the most powerful neutral beam(NB) injectors ever, delivering higher energy NBs to the plasma in a tokamak for longer than any previous systems have done. The design of the HNBs is based on the acceleration and neutralisation of negative ions as the efficiency of conversion of accelerated positive ions is so low at the required energy that a realistic design is not possible, whereas the neutralisation of H − and D − remains acceptable (≈56%).The design of a long pulse negative ion based injector is inherently more complicated than that of short pulse positive ion based injectors because:• negative ions are harder to create so that they can be extracted and accelerated from the ion source;• electrons can be co-extracted from the ion source along with the negative ions, and their acceleration must be minimised to maintain an acceptable overall accelerator efficiency;• negative ions are easily lost by collisions with the background gas in the accelerator;• electrons created in the extractor and accelerator can impinge on the extraction and acceleration grids, leading to high power loads on the grids;• positive ions are created in the accelerator by ionisation of the background gas by the accelerated negative ions and the positive ions are back-accelerated into the ion source creating a massive power load to the ion source;• electrons that are co-accelerated with the negative ions can exit the accelerator and deposit power on various downstream beamline components.The design of the ITER HNBs is further complicated because ITER is a nuclear installation which will generate very large fluxes of neutrons and gamma rays. Consequently all the injector components have to survive in that harsh environment. Additionally the beamline components and the NB cell, where the beams are housed, will be activated and all maintenance will have to be performed remotely.This paper describes the design of the HNB injectors, but not the associated power supplies, cooling system, cryogenic system etc, or the high voltage bushing which separates the vacuum of the beamline from the high pressure SF 6 of the high voltage (1 MV) transmission line, through which the power, gas and cooling water are supplied to the beam source. Also the magnetic field reduction system is not described.

A global model of a radiofrequency (rf) inductively coupled H 2 plasma discharge in the Deuterium Negative Ion Source Experiment (DENISE) has been developed using the numerical code 'Global Model Solver' (GMS). The volume-averaged energy and particle balance equations, along with the quasi-neutrality condition, are numerically solved to determine the averaged densities of all the species included in the model and the electron temperature. The effects of the multicusp magnetic field and of the asymmetry of the source chamber are considered in the model. The values of the volume-averaged electron density and the average electron temperature obtained are compared to experimental measurements in the pressure and input power ranges of interest and a reasonably good agreement is found.

Articles you may be interested inBasis of the discharge maintenance in a matrix source of negative hydrogen ionsa) Rev. Sci. Instrum. 85, 02B105 (2014); 10.1063/1.4826541 Effect of non-uniform electron energy distribution function on plasma production in large arc driven negative ion sourcea) Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 02A719 (2012); 10.1063/1.3673485 Cesium dynamics in long pulse operation of negative hydrogen ion sources for fusiona) Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 02B110 (2012); 10.1063/1.3670347 Development of a plasma generator for a long pulse ion source for neutral beam injectors Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 063507 (2011); 10.1063/1.3599585 Simulation of cesium injection and distribution in rf-driven ion sources for negative hydrogen ion generationa) Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 02A706 (2010);

Neutral beam injection (NBI) based on a negative ion source is one of the basic heating and current drive systems designed for ITER required to reach its goals of the operation with high fusion power, P fus ∼500 MW with fusion gain, Q=10 for 400 s in a baseline scenario, and P fus >250 MW, Q=5 operation for 3600 s in an advanced scenario. A total power of 33 MW from the two heating neutral beam (HNB) injectors is envisaged in the present scenario. The scope of the present paper is to provide an overview of the main aspects of the interaction of the HNBs with the ITER plasma. Various operational scenarios with different mixtures of the main ion species, He, H, DD and DT, foreseen at different phases of the ITER operation are considered.

The ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF), called PRIMA (Padova Research on ITER Megavolt Accelerator), is hosted in Padova, Italy and includes two experiments: MITICA, the full-scale prototype of the ITER heating neutral beam injector, and SPIDER, the full-size radio frequency negative-ions source. The NBTF realization and the exploitation of SPIDER and MITICA have been recognized as necessary to make the future operation of the ITER heating neutral beam injectors efficient and reliable, fundamental to the achievement of thermonuclear-relevant plasma parameters in ITER. This paper reports on design and R&D carried out to construct PRIMA, SPIDER and MITICA, and highlights the huge progress made in just a few years, from the signature of the agreement for the NBTF realization in 2011, up to now-when the buildings and relevant infrastructures have been completed, SPIDER is entering the integrated commissioning phase and the procurements of several MITICA components are at a well advanced stage.