PPPL-4361

Solenoid-free Plasma Start-up in NSTX using Transient CHI

Authors: R. . Raman, B.A. Nelson, D. Mueller, T.R. Jarboe, M.G. Bell, B. LeBlanc, R. Maqueda, J. Menard, M. Ono, M. Nagata, L. Roquemore, and V. Soukhanovskii.

Abstract:
Experiments in NSTX have now unambiguously demonstrated the coupling of toroidal plasmas produced by the technique of CHI to inductive sustainment and ramp-up of the toroidal plasma current. This is an important step because an alternate method for plasma startup is essential for developing a fusion reactor based on the spherical torus concept. Elimination of the central solenoid would also allow greater flexibility in the choice of the aspect ratio in tokamak designs now being considered. The transient CHI method for spherical torus startup was originally developed on the HIT-II experiment at the University of Washington.
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Presented at: The Innovative Confinement Concepts, 24 - 27 June 2008, Reno, Nevada USA.

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Download PPPL-4361 (pdf 475KB 4pp)
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