OPERATION OF THE TOKAMAK FUSION TEST REACTOR TRITIUM SYSTEMS DURING INITIAL TRITIUM EXPERIMENTS

The high power D-T experiments on the tokamak fusion test reactor (TFT R) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory commenced in November 19 93. During initial operation of the tritium systems a number of start- up problems surfaced and had to be corrected. These were corrected thr ough a series of system modifications and upgrades and by repair of fa iled or inadequate components. Even as these operational concerns were being addressed, the tritium systems continued to support D-T operati ons on the tokamak. During the first six months of D-T operations more than 107 kCi of tritium were processed successfully by the tritium sy stems. D-T experiments conducted at TFTR during this period provided s ignificant new data. Fusion power in excess of 9 MW was achieved in Ma y 1994. This paper describes some of the early start-up issues, and re ports on the operation of the tritium system and the tritium tracking and accounting system during the early phase of TFTR D-T experiments.