Fusion Ignition Research Experiment System Integration
Author: T. Brown
Date of PPPL Report: October 2000
Presented at: the American Nuclear Society's 14th Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion (Park City, Utah, October 15-19, 2000); proceedings to be published in Fusion Technology.
This paper describes the current status of the FIRE configuration and the integration of the major subsystem components. FIRE has a major radius of 2 m, a field on axis of 10T, a plasma current of 6.4 MA. It is capable of 18 second pulses when operated with DT and 26 s when operated with DD. The general arrangement consists of sixteen wedged TF coils that surround a free standing central solenoid, a double wall vacuum vessel and internal plasma facing components that are segmented for maintenance through horizontal ports. Large rings located outside the TF coils are used to obtain a load balance between wedging of the intercoil case structure and wedging at the upper/lower inboard corners of the TF coil winding. The magnets are liquid nitrogen cooled and the entire device is surrounded by a thermal enclosure. The double wall vacuum vessel integrates cooling and shielding in a shape that maximizes shielding of ex-vessel components. Within the vacuum vessel, plasma-facing components frame the plasma. First wall tiles are attached directly to inboard and outboard vacuum vessel walls. The divertor is designed for a high triangularity, double-null plasma with a short inner null point-to-wall distance and near vertical outer divertor flux line. The FIRE configuration has been developed to meet the physics objectives and subsystem requirements in an arrangement that allows remote maintenance of in-vessel components and hands-on maintenance of components outside the TF boundary.