STATUS OF THE JET ACTIVE GAS HANDLING-SYSTEM AND PLANS FOR TRITIUM OPERATION

The Joint European Torus (JET) carried out the first preliminary exper iment with a deuterium-tritium plasma in 1991. This utilised an on-sit e inventory of 0.25g. The future experimental programme for the JET ma chine includes two discrete phases using plasmas fuelled by deuterium and tritium. The first of these, in mid-1996, will generate around 2 x 10(20) neutrons and require a site inventory of a few grams of tritiu m. The second is proposed to take place in 1999 if an extension to the JET project from 1996 is granted. This will require a few tens of gra ms of tritium and will generate up to 5 x 10(21) neutrons. The JET Act ive Gas Handling System has been constructed to enable tritium to be r ecovered from the plasma exhaust and stored for re-injection. The desi gn also minimises tritium discharges to the environment. It is current ly being commissioned to meet the above programme and has been modifie d to take into account a new requirement for operation over extended p eriods during maintenance and D-D operation with tritium contaminated plasma exhaust. Commissioning of the Active Gas Handling System consis ts of inactive, trace tritium (similar to 40TBq) and full tritium (<3g ) phases. The experience and main results of inactive commissioning ar e presented and the status of tritium commissioning is reviewed.