DESIGN OF THE COMPACT TOROID FUELER FOR CENTER-FUELING-TOKAMAK-DE-VARENNES

Reactor particle fueling is one of the issues that remain to be resolv ed in the development of a tokamak fusion reactor. One of the most pro mising concepts of reactor fueling is the injection of high-speed comp act toroids (CTs). Compact toroid formation and acceleration at the Ri ng Accelerator Experiment (RA CE) device at Lawrence Livermore Nationa l Laboratory has shown that CT plasmoid velocities sufficient for cent er fueling fusion reactors can be achieved by using coaxial accelerato rs. The Compact Toroid Fueler (CTF) will inject high-speed, dense sphe romak plasmoids into the Tokamak de Varennes (TdeV) to examine the fea sibility of this approach as a fueler for future reactors. Here, a con ceptual design study of the particle fueler for TdeV is presented. The issues of CTF design that are considered are formation and relaxation of an axisymmetric CT, optimization of accelerator performance to imp rove injector electrical efficiency, separation of formation and accel eration phases to improve injector reproducibility, minimization of en trained impurities in the CT, and minimization of neutral gas load to the tokamak following CT fueling. The CTF injector will test theories on CT/tokamak interaction related to reactor fueling. Among the eventu al physics questions addressed are the multiple-pulse requirements for future injectors, the bootstrap current enhancement factor, CT fuel c onfinement times, impurity effects, plasma heating, injector electrica l efficiency, and the effect of gas load on the tokamak following CT i njection.