Preparations for deuterium–tritium experiments on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor*

Abstract

The final hardware modifications for tritium operation have been completed for the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) [Fusion Techno!. 21, 1324]. These activities include preparation of the tritium gas handling system, installation of additional neutron shielding, conversion of the toroidal field coil cooling system from water to a Fluorinert TM system, modification of the vacuum system to handle tritium, preparation, and testing of the neutral beam system for tritium operation and a final deuterium-deuterium (D-D) run to simulate expected deuterium-tritium (D-T) operation. Testing of the tritium system with low concentration tritium has successfully begun. Simulation of trace and high power D-T experiments using D-D have been performed. The physics objectives of D-T operation are production of::::; 10 MW of fusion power, evaluation of confinement, and heating in deuteriumtritium plasmas, evaluation of a-particle heating of electrons, and collective effects driven by alpha particles and testing of diagnostics for confined a particles. Experimental results and theoretical modeling in support of the D-T experiments are reviewed.

Results from deuterium-tritium tokamak confinement experiments

“…To collect and measure the injected tritium, the normal torus pumping system was replaced by a cryogenic gas collection system as shown in Fig The TFTR tritium gas handling system is restricted to 1.85 x 1015 Bq (50 kCi) in-process tritium (Hawryluk et al, 1994b;Anderson et al, 1994Anderson et al, , 1995. By restricting the tritium inventory, the accident potential is reduced to personnel working on-site as well as to the general public.…”